Africa calls for urgent climate action

African leaders, policymakers and climate experts have called for urgent homegrown solutions to address the worsening impacts of climate change, warning that prolonged delays pose a grave threat to frontline communities across the continent.

From rising temperatures and prolonged droughts to destructive floods, climate shocks are deepening food insecurity, displacing communities and damaging other critical infrastructure.

Without swift and coordinated action, the leaders warned that climate change could reverse development gains, slow economic growth and place severe strain on food systems, water resources and livelihoods.

Homegrown solutions are key for Africa.

The calls were made in Nairobi during a high-level sensitization conference on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change, convened in the wake of a landmark advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice, or ICJ.

Issued on July 23, 2025, the ICJ opinion affirmed that states have binding legal obligations to protect the climate system and may face consequences for climate-related harm.

Experts at the three-day conference, which ended on Thursday, said the ruling marks a turning point in how governments may integrate climate risks into national planning, public finance and infrastructure decisions.

Kenya's Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Korir Sing'Oei said the ICJ opinion shifts climate policy from a voluntary commitment to a matter of legal compliance with potential economic and legal consequences.

Obligations stressed

He reiterated that climate obligations must be implemented holistically, including through Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, under the Paris Agreement.

"The ICJ advisory opinion is unequivocal: State obligations are legal, binding and enforceable, not optional," he said at the meeting.

Sing'Oei noted that Kenya, alongside Rwanda, played a key role in bringing the matter before the ICJ to address what he described as the selective implementation of international climate obligations by developed countries.

"Developing countries, particularly in Africa, are on the receiving end of the climate crisis. We contribute the least but suffer the most. From the recent severe floods in Nairobi, the cost of inaction is already evident," he said.

Participants also warned that the United States' withdrawal from key global commitments could weaken climate financing for developing nations, even as the ICJ ruling confirms its continued responsibilities under international law.

George Wamukoya, team leader of the African Group of Negotiators' Expert Support, said no country can walk away from climate obligations simply by exiting multilateral arrangements.

"The ICJ is saying even if you pull out, you are still bound by international principles. That means even the US can face climate litigation for failing to provide resources where harm has been caused," Wamukoya said.

He noted that Africa contributes less than 4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet many countries are being forced to shoulder adaptation costs while grappling with heavy debt burdens.

The Nairobi conference emphasized that some locally driven solutions include climate-smart agriculture programs to stabilize food production, landscape restoration to improve water security and renewable energy investments to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels.

Eliane Ubalijoro, the chief executive officer of the Center for International Forestry Research, an international research institute, noted that climate change is not only an environmental or a legal issue but fundamentally a human and development issue.

"Addressing it requires science, law and policy to work together, so that we can move from principle to action and deliver real solutions for communities," she said.

victor@chinadailyafrica.com