JUNE 14, 2024
Climate Action Platform-Africa (CAP-A), launched and expanded by James Irungu Mwangi (Awardee 2022) through the Climate Breakthrough Award program, represents a bold reimagining of Africa’s role in the global climate crisis. Rather than casting the continent as merely a victim of climate change, the initiative positions Africa as a crucial part of the solution, offering a path to both economic prosperity and global climate aleapfrogginglealealeaction.
The Challenge
Africa faces what appears to be an impossible dilemma. The continent’s low-income countries need rapid economic growth to provide stable livelihoods for their growing populations. However, following the traditional carbon-intensive development path would be catastrophic for global climate goals. If Africa were to grow to upper-middle-income status using the same carbon-intensive methods as current countries in that bracket, it would add approximately 12 gigatons of CO2 emissions annually by 2050, making global net zero targets impossible to achieve.
The current global climate dialogue implicitly suggests that the poorest countries can best contribute to avoiding climate disaster by remaining poor. This assumption is not only morally questionable but also impractical, especially given Africa’s demographic surge and its legitimate aspirations for economic development.
The Initiative
CAP-A proposes a different approach called Climate Positive Growth. This model leverages Africa’s unique advantages—abundant renewable energy resources, available labor force, and relevant natural assets—to create economic growth while achieving net-negative emissions at a globally significant scale.
The initiative will work through three main pathways. First, promoting Africa’s leapfrogging to green solutions for its own growing consumption needs. Second, positioning the continent as a green industrialization hub, taking advantage of its natural resources and renewable energy potential. Third, helping deploy Africa’s workforce and natural assets toward scaling up carbon removal solutions. The initiative will focus on orchestrating the ecosystem by partnering with African countries, NGOs, and innovators to promote actionable opportunities. It develops detailed analytics on carbon sink potential, maps green industry opportunities, and analyzes the employment impacts of low-emissions solutions.
CAP-A is working to establish itself as a globally authoritative source of data and analytics on climate positive growth opportunities. It’s developing partnerships with leading global institutions like the International Energy Agency and World Resources Institute, while helping African countries incorporate CPG into their national development plans and Nationally Determined Contributions.
The Vision
CAP-A’s ambitions are substantial. By 2050, this initiative aims to help Africa avoid up to 7.5 Gigatons of CO2 emissions annually through accelerated adoption of low-emissions technologies. Additionally, it targets supporting global emissions reduction of up to 11.2 Gigatons annually by establishing Africa as a hub for low-emissions industrial production and agricultural practices. Perhaps most ambitiously, the platform envisions African countries collectively removing 100 Gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere between now and 2050—representing a 40% increase in the remaining global carbon budget.
What sets CAP-A apart is its practical approach to combining climate action with economic development. Rather than viewing these as competing priorities, the platform seeks to demonstrate how climate action can drive economic growth and job creation. This approach could fundamentally transform Africa’s role in global climate action, shifting the continent from a recipient of climate aid to a provider of climate solutions.