Africa demands debt relief and direct finance at COP31 Climate Summit

The African Group of Negotiators on Climate Change (AGN) has noted that the world’s transition away from fossil fuels cannot be called "just" if low- and middle-income nations must mortgage their economic futures to achieve it.

Addressing delegates at the opening AGN plenary session at the 31st UN Climate Summit (COP31) in Antalya, Türkiye, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Simon Stiell, declared that COP31 must mark a decisive pivot from commitment to execution.

Stiell emphasised that the summit must turn existing international pledges into concrete action, lay the foundation for the second Global Stocktake (GST 2), and establish operational mechanisms to triple global climate finance.

However, for African negotiators representing 54 nations on the front lines of severe climate shocks, the debate over scaling finance is inseparable from an escalating sovereign debt crisis that threatens to choke off the continent's economic development.

The macroeconomic reality confronting sub-Saharan Africa is increasingly precarious. While African nations account for less than half the per capita greenhouse gas emissions of the Global North, the region is experiencing severe weather disruptions, exacerbated by a climate change-fueled Super El Niño.

At the same time, shrinking foreign aid and mounting sovereign debt obligations are severely curtailing domestic policy space.

According to research presented by Nana Dr Antwi-Boasiako Amoah, Chair of the Africa Group of Negotiators, more than two-thirds of low-income countries are either already unable to meet their sovereign debt obligations or sit at high risk of debt distress.

Rather than receiving concessional grant funding to build climate resilience, developing nations face international climate finance flows that predominantly increase their debt loads. Roughly two-thirds of all self-described climate finance provided by Global North nations consists of loans.

This structural imbalance creates a destructive cycle. The top third most climate-vulnerable countries now spend an average of nearly two-thirds of their annual revenues servicing sovereign debt – spending, on average, 25 times more on debt servicing than on climate action. With borrowing costs for African nations averaging 13 per cent, sovereign debt service has become the primary barrier to clean energy transitions and climate adaptation.

The macroeconomic crisis translates directly into governance bottlenecks across sub-Saharan Africa, where governments are forced to choose between basic civic services and debt compliance.

Country-level evidence submitted to the AGN plenary highlights how sovereign debt disincentivises clean energy deployment and disrupts local administration.

In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, fossil fuels comprised almost 90 per cent of export value in 2024. Despite legacy oil and gas extraction projects continuing to plague local communities, geopolitical conflict in the Middle East drove up global petroleum prices. Rather than providing capital for clean energy reinvestment, mounting debt burdens have disincentivised Nigeria's transition away from fossil fuel exports.

As AGN Chair Antwi-Boasiako Amoah stressed during the plenary, African populations will not tolerate diplomatic climate agreements that require sacrificing foundational domestic development—including healthcare systems, primary schools, municipal infrastructure, and local roads—to solve a global climate crisis to which Africa barely contributed.

African nations arrive at COP31 having demonstrated substantial climate ambition within their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Sub-Saharan Africa holds the world’s largest concentration of renewable energy targets embedded within national climate plans. However, up to 90 per cent of that planned ambition remains contingent on international financial support that remains unsecured.

To bridge this gap, the African Group of Negotiators has organised its negotiating agenda around three core demands: Predictable, substantial climate capital that reflects the true magnitude of NDC implementation costs across African economies; A decisive shift away from sovereign loans toward grant-based and concessional finance that does not worsen fiscal distress; and Channelling climate funds directly through African financial institutions, national entities, and regional development mechanisms to ensure localised governance and rapid deployment.

For African negotiators, the outcome at COP31 transcends energy metrics.

As Chair Antwi-Boasiako Amoah has noted, a just energy transition is fundamentally about whether Africa can industrialise, create decent employment, and extend electricity access to the hundreds of millions of citizens currently without power.

With Ethiopia designated to host COP32, the African Group has signalled that sovereign debt relief and non-debt climate finance will remain the central test of international climate justice.