The just concluded Africa Climate Summit was a blessing to many countries and organisations dealing with climate change.
This follows the agreed commitments and announcements, some financial, made at the four-day summit that was themed; 'Driving green growth and climate finance solutions for Africa and the World.'
Commitments were made by governments, the private sector, multi-lateral organisations, foundations, banks, philanthropists and United Nations agencies, among others.
The above set out concrete, systematic and sustainable plans to take the steps needed to progress towards Net Zero emissions, and international climate goals on finance and adaptation.
The commitments will be used as a foundation to mobilise urgent action on climate across Africa, and beyond - it lays the pathway from Nairobi to Net Zero.
The commitments amounted to a combined investment of nearly $26 billion (Sh3.8 trillion).
Top on the list as shared by the ACS summit Secretariat were the hosts and collective announcements through, "The African Leaders Nairobi Declaration On Climate Change and Call to Action.''
The above was launched with signatories from the Heads of State of Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Djibouti.
Others were Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Libya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sahrawi, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Tanzania, along with the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the President of the European Union.
Kenya launched the Financing Locally-led Climate Action Programme (FLLoCA), a $49.7 million (Sh7.3 billion) investment announced by President William Ruto to counties in the form of County Climate Change Investment Grants.
Together with Sh3 billion of county own-resource allocations, the grants will finance local climate action priorities in agriculture, water and natural resources management in every county.
The country also launched a new Green Growth Plan, a new green hydrogen deal, Long-term Low Emissions Development Strategies and the Kenya Climate Change Act, 2023.
It also announced a new National Climate Change Action Plan (2023-2027) and that Kenya would be the new site of the new Africa headquarters for the Global Centre for Adaptation.
The Nairobi declaration: 7 declarations adopted unanimously during Africa Climate Summit
There was a youth declaration, and launch of Accelerated Partnership for Renewables in Africa with a cohort of African countries - Kenya, Ethiopia, Namibia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe - with a highly renewable agenda, forming a partnership to accelerate renewables on the continent and pursue green industrialisation.
The partnership is supported by Denmark, Germany, and the United Arab Emirates.
Others were Moroni Declaration Partner Countries and the Global Green Growth Initiative.
Various African countries also made various commitments including Algeria, which committed to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by seven per cent by 2030, Sierra Leone by 10 per cent by 2030 and Zimbabwe a conditional 40 per cent per capita emissions reduction by 2023, across the four Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sectors namely Waste; Energy; Industrial Processes and Product Use, and Agriculture, Forestry.
The donor governments also committed or pledged various amounts at the summit including Belgium (EUR 49 million), Canada ($35 million), Denmark ($232 million), and Finland (EUR 4.3 million).
France reaffirmed its commitment to provide EUR 6 billion of climate finance per year until 2025, including one-third for adaptation, and committed to increase its biodiversity finance to EUR 1 billion euros by 2025.
It also announced a doubling of its yearly contribution to Climate Risk and Early Warnings Systems up to EUR 8 million per year, starting in 2023, on top of its total contribution of $42 million to date.
Others were the United States of America's $161 million new investments, the United Kingdom (PS34 million) and seven new climate finance projects - investments worth PS15 million from UK-backed FSD Africa Investments.
The United Arab Emirates pledged $4.5 billion to help finance African climate projects, Portugal (EUR 412 million) and Norway's International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI) commitment of $25 million for 2023-2026 to support Ethiopia's forest sector.
Italy re-committed to assisting developing countries in resilience and adaptation measures, in line with previously allocated over EUR 200 million, for projects in Africa while and Ireland to double their adaptation funding by 2025.
Germany on its part announced debt for climate swap with Kenya of EUR 60 million among other financial support for other projects in the continent.
The private sector was not left behind as Ampersand announced closing on a successful fundraising of $13 million to finance the expansion of its electric motorbike fleet, with the potential for an additional $7.5million, to finance the expansion of its battery swap network and electric motorcycle fleet in Nairobi and Kigali.
It also announced an additional $40 million in fundraising in 2024.
Others included HDF Energy (Hydrogene de France), Leapfrog Investments announced over $500 million of growth capital over the next five years, and Masdar, $10 billion in climate finance for renewable energy projects.
Banks, multi-laterals and foundations, UN agencies, civil society and cities also made several commitments.
In the cities, the host Nairobi committed to a short-term goal of reducing emissions by 23 per cent by 2025, and a long-term goal of 66 per cent emissions reduction by 2050. It targets to become carbon-neutral by 2050.
