Climate plans: CAPPA warns against fossil fuel expansion, corporate capture

… Says Nigeria’s 2060 net-zero ambition contradicts 3m barrels-per-day oil target … Demands phase-down of fossil fuels, grants, protection of community land rights By Chioma Obinna Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) on Tuesday warned that African governments risk turning their climate commitments into instruments for expanding fossil fuel production and advancing corporate interests at the expense of vulnerable communities.

The organisation, alongside the Africa Make Big Polluters Pay Coalition (MBPP Africa), said Africa’s climate transition would amount to little more than rhetoric unless governments confronted the contradictions between their renewable energy commitments, continued investments in oil and gas, and growing dependence on foreign climate financing. The warning came as the organisations unveiled two reports examining Nigeria’s Energy Transition Plan and the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of five African countries at a media presentation in Lagos.

The reports, titled Four Years On: Examining Nigeria’s Just Transition Plan and Nationally Determined Contributions in Africa: A Five-Country Policy Analysis, assessed the climate commitments of Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa, Togo and Uganda. They identified fossil fuel expansion, uncertain climate financing, carbon markets and the growing influence of private corporations in climate policy development as major threats to achieving a genuinely just transition across the continent.

Speaking, the Executive Director of CAPPA, Akinbode Oluwafemi, said the central question was whether African climate policies were genuinely transforming economies and protecting people or creating fresh opportunities for corporate interests to profit while communities bear the consequences. He said: “These reports emerge from a fundamental concern: Are Africa’s climate policies genuinely transforming our economies and protecting our people, or are they creating new opportunities for corporate interests to profit while communities bear the consequences?” Oluwafemi said governments could not claim to be pursuing decarbonisation while simultaneously approving projects and infrastructure that entrenched dependence on fossil fuels.

He cited the contradictions in Uganda, where French multinational TotalEnergies promotes investments in renewable energy, including solar, while remaining a leading developer of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, EACOP, and the Tilenga oil project. He also referenced Cameroon’s award of five of nine oil blocks offered to fossil fuel operators, including Murphy Oil and Octavia Energy, despite its stated decarbonisation commitments.

In Nigeria, the report identified a major contradiction between the country’s ambition to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060 and its official target of producing three million barrels of crude oil daily by 2030. It acknowledged progress in renewable energy deployment and policy development but argued that the country’s energy transition was being layered onto an economy still heavily dependent on oil and gas.

The report also questioned the promotion of natural gas as a clean transition fuel, warning that methane, its principal component, is a powerful greenhouse gas responsible, alongside methane emissions from other sources, for nearly 30 per cent of global warming since the Industrial Revolution. According to the organisations, the challenge is not merely setting climate targets but establishing institutions, financing arrangements and enforceable social protections capable of delivering them.

They noted that Nigeria’s Energy Transition Plan lacked sufficiently enforceable guarantees for workers and communities affected by the transition, particularly in areas where livelihoods depend on oil and gas activities. The report further highlighted the scale of Nigeria’s energy access challenge, citing World Bank figures showing that more than 80 million Nigerians lacked access to electricity as of March 2025.

It argued that a successful transition must deliver affordable and reliable electricity, secure livelihoods, environmental restoration and viable economic alternatives for communities in the Niger Delta and other extraction zones. On climate financing, the reports raised concerns about the growing dependence of African countries on international funding, particularly loans that could deepen their debt burden.

Nigeria estimates that it requires $337 billion between 2026 and 2035 to implement its climate commitments, with 80 per cent expected from international funding. Similarly, Togo has made 69.9 per cent of its financing requirements conditional on international support, while South Africa’s NDC indicates that approximately 80 per cent of international financial support recorded for 2021 and 2022 came in the form of loans.

Oluwafemi, in his opening remarks, warned against financing arrangements that could further impoverish countries already bearing the consequences of a clima