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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 climate crisis they contributed relatively little to creating.
He said: “Even worse, climate finance delivered as loans risks pushing African nations deeper into debt as they respond to a crisis they have contributed little to creating.”

He also criticised the outsourcing of climate policy development to foreign private companies, citing Togo’s engagement of Paris-based Cibola Partners to prepare key technical deliverables for its climate mitigation, adaptation and investment planning.
He said such arrangements raised questions about whose interests ultimately shaped national climate policies.

The reports also expressed concern over carbon markets and offsetting schemes, which allow polluters to compensate for emissions through projects elsewhere, including commercial plantations and forestry initiatives.

The organisations warned that such arrangements could shift responsibility from major polluters to communities whose lands and natural resources are used for carbon projects.

Uganda’s climate plan, for instance, assigns significantly greater projected emissions reductions to commercial plantations than to its two natural-forest restoration measures.
The report also cited documented forced evictions associated with a forestry and carbon-credit project in Kachung, Uganda, as an example of the dangers of climate interventions that fail to protect community rights.

Contributing partners from the five-country study also called for greater accountability and community participation.
Also, the Founder and Chief Executive of Yielding Intersectional Movements in South Africa, Ndivile Mokoena said: “The persistent gap between global climate commitments and local realities raises critical questions about  political will and economic systems that continue to prioritise profit and growth over human well-being and ecological sustainability. This report underscores the urgent need to move beyond promises to tangible implementation, adequate climate financing, and meaningful support for developing countries.”

Also, the Executive Director of Nia Environment & Zero Carbon Alliance in Uganda Acola Amina said: “Achieving a rights-based, ecofeminist climate agenda that reflects Uganda’s realities and responds to the needs of affected communities requires inclusive participation and collective commitment.”

The Executive Director of Centre pour la Justice Environnementale in Togo, Kwami Kpondzo said: “Carbon markets and geoengineering are not solutions to the climate crisis. Rather, they are dangerous distractions that risk worsening the plight of vulnerable communities, threatening livelihoods, and undermining genuine climate action. We must put people and the planet before profit. Nature is not a commodity for sale, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to defending it.”

Oluwafemi further said: “The Nigeria Energy Transition Plan and the Five-Country NDCs Reports offer an opportunity to rethink how energy policies and climate commitments serve people and communities. These reports emphasise that equity, transparency and accountability must remain central in every plan, while ensuring that affected communities have a meaningful voice in decisions that shape their future.”

The organisations called on African delegates attending the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP31, in Antalya, Türkiye, to reject carbon offsetting as a substitute for actual emissions reductions and oppose arrangements that allow continued fossil fuel pollution to be balanced against temporary carbon storage.

They also demanded a planned and funded phase-down of fossil fuel extraction, substantial public investment in decentralised renewable energy, affordable electricity and legally binding protections for workers and affected communities.

Other demands include grant-based climate financing from historically high-emitting countries, legal protection for communal land, transparent climate budgets and binding safeguards against corporate influence in national climate policy decisions.
The organisations insisted that Indigenous Peoples, smallholder farmers, rural women and frontline communities must have enforceable rights to reject projects that threaten their lands, livelihoods and access to natural resources.

Their intervention comes amid growing concerns over the widening gap between global climate commitments and actual emissions reductions.

The United Nations Environment Programme’s latest Emissions Gap Report projects that current policies could lead to 2.8 degrees Celsius of warming this century, while full implementation of national climate pledges could still result in 2.6 degrees Celsius.