Africa Misread the Just Energy Transition at COP30

At COP30 in Belém, African negotiators chose to stand apart from one of the summit’s most consequential debates. Under Tanzania’s leadership, the African Group of Negotiators aligned themselves with major oil-producing countries and urged ministers to oppose the inclusion of any language on “transitioning away from fossil fuels” in the conference outcome, framing such a roadmap as a threat to Africa’s development prospects. Their position ultimately contributed to a week-long standoff that ended with fossil fuels being excluded entirely from the final Global Mutirão decision. African countries’ stance may reflect a deep concern over defending their sovereignty, but it was strategically miscalculated to put it in a forceful way. By refusing to engage altogether, African governments blurred the distinction between a just energy transition and the absence of any transition at all. This position inevitably weakens their ability to secure climate finance and technology for what has long been presented as a dual-track strategy: developing fossil resources while simultaneously expanding renewable energy. It also overlooks the deeper structural reality that a fossil-dependent development model cannot, in the twenty-first century, meet the economic and energy security needs of any country—nor shield it from the substantial environmental and fiscal costs that inevitably follow.

Much of the African rhetoric treated “just transition” as synonymous with external pressure to shut down oil and gas before these resources have had any chance to support domestic development. Officials frequently pointed to the reality that hundreds of millions of households still lack access to cooking fuels, and that expanding electricity and energy supply that primarily relies on fossil fuels is essential for industrial growth in Africa. A number of African states possess natural gas, oil and, and to a lesser extent, coal, and many of these deposits remain largely undeveloped. Thus, fossil fuels were presented as the most immediate, economical and realistic option for meeting basic energy needs while driving economic expansion. In fact, this line of reasoning closely resembles the “pollute first, improve later” development model associated with China’s early reform era—a strategy that prioritized rapid economic expansion through cheap fossil energy, accepted climate and environmental damage as an interim cost, and assumed that future prosperity would fund eventual remediation. Both Britain’s mid-nineteenth-century coal-driven industrialization and China’s energy-intensive industrial expansion during the reform era were emblematic of this trajectory, and actually much of today’s industrialized world followed some version of this path as it developed. However, those paths unfolded under conditions profoundly different from today’s. It was a world with limited understanding of climate risks, few affordable clean energy options, weak global climate governance, and virtually no recognition of carbon as an economic and social liability. 

The “pollute first, improve later” development model imposes immense costs including severe climate damage, air pollution, and heavy fiscal burdens for environmental recovery. Replicating such a pathway in the twenty-first century would mean repeating the damage without the historical justifications because the structural, technological and policy conditions that shaped earlier industrialisation have fundamentally changed today. Clean energy is becoming more affordable and accessible, the scientific and political understanding of climate risks has progressed to the point where the long-term negative consequences of fossil-heavy development are widely recognized, and there is also a tendency of increasing penalties on carbon emission through trade. 

Another deeper structural problem is that a fossil-heavy development strategy is also unlikely to succeed on its own terms even before considering the accelerating global shift toward clean energy. Africa is home to nearly one-fifth of the world’s population, yet it holds only about 10 percent of global oil and gas reserves, and these are concentrated in just a handful of countries. These resources are already central to fiscal revenues and exports. They are far too limited, both in volume and distribution, to sustain the long-term domestic growth once economic development accelerates and energy demand rises. 

This creates a double trap for any fossil fuel driven pathway. If economies grow quickly, domestic energy demand will outstrip what fossil resources can reliably and affordably supply, forcing increased imports and exposing African countries to volatile international prices and geopolitical shocks. If growth falters, African societies will bear the environmental and health damage associated with high fossil use without generating the fiscal capacity required for large-scale clean-up or adaptation. In both scenarios, the continent is left more vulnerable. Renewable energy and modern grids are therefore the only realistic way to build the scale, resilience, and diversity of supply that a prosperous Africa will require.

This vulnerability is further compounded by the fiscal and political dependence that prolonged reliance on fossil revenues can create. Many African economies derive a substantial share of government revenue and export earnings from fossil fuels. Over half of African states depend on oil, gas, or minerals for at least 60 percent of export earnings, and the fiscal dependence helps explain why energy transition attempts are dragged by immediate budgetary and political concerns rather than long-term planning. Yet it is also precisely this dependence that underscores the need for diversification, because prolonged reliance on resource rents risks reinforcing the well-documented “resource curse”, making development unsustainable both economically and climatically for Africa.

African countries also risk losing access to the very financial and political influence they will need if they disengage from the transition altogether. Climate finance is explicitly intended to support developing countries, and African states have already benefited from it in meaningful ways. South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET-IP), for instance, unlocked an initial funding package of $8.5 billion, with additional commitments continuing to grow. International organizations such as the World Bank have also advanced off-grid solar deployment in under-electrified regions through programs like the Kenya Off-Grid Solar Access Project. Resources do flow when countries present credible plans, but without engagement in shaping the emerging global transition roadmap, many African governments will struggle to secure the concessional finance needed to scale their energy systems as demand rises.

The political costs are just as significant. Whether or not African governments engage, a global fossil-fuel transition is already underway, and the rules that emerge will affect the continent directly and indirectly for decades to come. By failing to participate and make their voices heard on the future of global energy, African negotiators weakened their ability to shape a framework that will apply to them whether or not they formally consent. African countries could instead adopt a strategy of conditional engagement that supports a roadmap in principle and sets out clear transition timelines, energy-access guarantees, and protections for oil- and gas-dependent economies. Such an approach would allow African states to become rule-makers who design frameworks suited to their own development realities, which only they are in a position to define. However, the continent entered the negotiations with a posture of rejection, leaving its core priorities—energy access, exposure to market volatility, and the fiscal vulnerability of fossil-dependent states—absent from the emerging process. 

A dual-track strategy that develops both renewable energy and fossil fuels while steadily increasing the weight of clean energy offers a more cost-competitive and practical pathway for Africa. Solar and wind electricity generation is already among the lowest-cost options for new power supply, and mini-grids and distributed systems can electrify remote communities without the expensive transmission infrastructure required by conventional grids. Unlike oil or gas, renewable energy is also largely insulated from global fuel price volatility that has repeatedly destabilized African economies. Clean energy is therefore no longer an environmental luxury but a practical development tool for today’s emerging economies. In this sense, a just transition does not require fossil resources to disappear or even decline; it requires that clean energy expand rapidly alongside them and gradually account for a larger share of the continent’s growing energy system, allowing Africa to pursue development without inheriting the long-term economic risks associated with a fossil-heavy system.

Africa’s concerns about development are real, and its right to shape its own energy future is unquestionable. Nevertheless, disengaging from the just transition debate does not protect that future. A strategy of conditional engagement, paired with a dual-track energy system that expands clean energy alongside fossil resources, would give African states not only access to climate finance but also a role in shaping the rules of a world that is already moving away from carbon. A just transition will not be a constraint on African development but a mechanism to secure it: a framework that links growth with resilience, sovereignty with sustainability, and short-term needs with long-term stability. This is precisely for this reason that Africa’s interests are not advanced by aligning with fossil-fuel exporters to resist transition frameworks. By choosing to participate rather than resist, African countries can turn the energy transition from a perceived threat into an instrument of economic empowerment crafted on their own terms.