New reports from CAPPA and the Make Big Polluters Pay coalition urge African climate negotiators at COP31 in Antalya to push for grant-based climate finance instead of loans. Africa contributes about three percent of global emissions but carries a heavy share of climate impacts. The reports cover Nigeria's just transition plan and the NDCs of Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa, Togo, and Uganda, and they warn that loan-heavy finance can deepen debt while doing little to cut emissions. The reports also highlight contradictions in national policy. Nigeria aims for net zero by 2060 while targeting three million barrels of oil production per day by 2030. South Africa's NDC shows roughly 80 percent of international climate support recorded in 2021 and 2022 came as loans. On carbon markets, the authors caution that offsets, including commercial forestry projects, can let major polluters delay real emissions cuts. They point to documented forced evictions tied to a carbon credit project in Kachung, Uganda as a risk of weak safeguards. The recommendations include binding conflict-of-interest rules, legal protection for communal lands, and a planned phase-down of fossil fuel extraction backed by public investment in decentralized renewables. The core ask is simple: wealthy countries should pay for climate damage they largely caused, and they should do it with grants, not loans that shift the burden onto African nations.
