Africa\u2019s request for recognition of its \u201cspecial needs and circumstances\u201d has remained unresolved for a decade now. First raised at COP21 in Paris in 2015, the issue was formally brought forward as a proposed agenda item at COP24 in Katowice in 2018, resubmitted in 2019, and again in 2022, when Zambia proposed it on behalf of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) at CMA4 in Sharm El Sheikh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The matter was considered through consultations at CMA5 in Dubai in 2023 and further discussed during COP29 presidency consultations in Baku. Tanzania subsequently carried the issue forward ahead of COP30 in Bel\u00e9m. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As official AGN records show, Parties have continued to face blockages in concluding the matter. At COP30 in 2025, the Presidency proposed a dedicated summit on the matter, to be convened in Africa in 2027. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change fourth assessment report (IPCC AR4), published in 2007, has already given Africa its own dedicated vulnerability chapter. Yet formal recognition of Africa\u2019s particular circumstances under the Paris Agreement remains unresolved, despite extensive scientific evidence documenting the continent\u2019s exposure and constrained adaptive capacity. While the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement framework provides specific recognition and provisions for the special circumstances of least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing States (SIDS), it has not extended comparable formal recognition to Africa\u2019s continent-wide special needs and circumstances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beneath this stalemate lies a fundamental question: what does solidarity actually require, of the multilateral system and of society itself, since science has already told us who is most vulnerable and why? Special circumstances recognition is not, therefore, an end in itself. It is a test of whether the principle of solidarity is applied consistently; that those with greater capacity support those with greater vulnerability, at every scale where that vulnerability lies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The science is more precise than the politics around it usually allows. In the IPCC framework, vulnerability is shaped by exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, not income alone. The IPCC\u2019s sixth assessment report (IPCC AR6) identifies West, Central and East Africa among regions facing multiple and compounding climate risks, with high exposure to hazards, climate-sensitive livelihoods, and their adaptive capacity constrained by poverty, debt and thin fiscal space. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Poverty does not create vulnerability by itself. It erodes the capacity of populations already exposed to a shock to absorb and recover from it. That distinction should decide who solidarity is owed to, rather than a flat claim that Africa is poor and therefore vulnerable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Measured this way, the multilateral case is not in dispute. Africa produces barely four percent of global emissions yet bears a disproportionate share of climate exposure and has among the least capacity to absorb its impacts. That gap will only widen as sub-Saharan Africa is projected to remain the world\u2019s fastest-growing region, with its population expected to increase by 79 percent between 2024 and 2054. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is exactly what the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC) was designed to address. Article 3.1 of the UNFCCC commits developed countries to take the lead because they hold the greatest historical responsibility for cumulative emissions and the greatest capacity to act. Article 4.4 commits them to assist developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in meeting costs of adaptation. The 2024 UN Pact for the Future also reaffirmed the importance of global solidarity in adaptation efforts. Africa is not asking for exceptional treatment outside the treaty; it is asking that the treaty\u2019s own promise, already made, finally be kept. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That promise is tested most concretely in the numbers. Three questions decide whether adaptation finance reflects solidarity or merely gestures at it: how much arrives, what form it takes, and who ultimately carries the cost. According to Climate Policy Initiative (CPI), climate finance to sub-Saharan Africa reached $55 billion in 2024, but only $11 billion went to adaptation, down 15 percent from 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than half of adaptation finance commitments to Africa in the relevant CPI assessment were loans rather than grants, while debt service is projected to average 137 percent of Africa\u2019s annual climate finance needs through 2030. A loan may close today\u2019s gap while narrowing tomorrow\u2019s fiscal space. This matters most for countries already facing the greatest climate risks, and 15 of the 20 countries at the bottom of the 2024 Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN) climate vulnerability ranking were African. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The debate over private finance also deserves a sharper question than usual. Instruments that seek to profit from the climate crisis have no place in an architecture meant to embody solidarity rather than extract from it. The World Economic Forum and the IMF argue that de-risked private capital can still be mobilised at scale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Private capital may suit investments with a reliable commercial return, but drainage systems, early warning networks and public health preparedness are not that, since their payoff is measured in lives and stability, not yield. Where returns are structurally insufficient, the question is who finances the adaptation needs of people least able to attract investment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The same standard of solidarity Africa demands internationally keeps applying inside every African country making that demand. It applies between richer and poorer households and between formal institutions and the people they fail to reach. Vulnerability is differentiated at community and household level exactly as it is at country level: by exposure, dependency and capacity to absorb a shock. Elderly relatives, children, people with disabilities and displaced families are not vulnerable because they are poor in the abstract. They are vulnerable because a specific shock meets limited capacity to cope. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
None of this lets developed countries off the hook. Nor does it blame African institutions for a crisis they did not cause. Historical responsibility for emissions and domestic responsibility for care are different obligations. What they share is one underlying test: that capacity and responsibility should flow toward vulnerability, wherever it is found. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Look at where the shortfall in international recognition and finance actually lands once it reaches the ground. Brookings\u2019 2026 review of 97 national adaptation plans (NAPs) from predominantly low- and-middle income countries found that care work is generally treated within sectoral actions rather than being recognised as a cross-cutting system that underpins resilience. Early childhood care was absent from 96 of the 97 plans reviewed, and a UN Women\u2019s parallel review of African Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) found only 5 of 47 mention care-related gender dimensions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amos Wemanya is a Senior Climate Advisor and Peter Wanyangi a Climate Finance Project Officer at Power Shift Africa. <\/em> <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Formal recognition of Africa\u2019s particular circumstances under the Paris Agreement remains unresolved, despite extensive scientific evidence documenting the continent\u2019s exposure and constrained adaptive capacity. While the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement framework provides specific recognition and provisions for the special circumstances of least developed countries and small island developing States, it has not extended comparable formal recognition to Africa\u2019s continent-wide special needs and circumstances.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":11146,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"writer":[48,46],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-11143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","writer-amos-wemanya","writer-peter-wanyangi"],"acf":{"url":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11143"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11188,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11143\/revisions\/11188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11143"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=11143"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=11143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}