Time to close gap between climate promises and justice
Opinion
By
Janet Milongo
| Nov 19, 2025
As the world turns its eyes to Belém, Brazil, for COP30, one truth stands out: The global energy transition is happening, but it is not happening fast enough, fairly enough, nor is it unfolding at the scale demanded by science or justice.
At COP28 in Dubai in 2023, leaders pledged to triple renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency by 2030. Yet two years on, only 19 of 60 countries that have submitted new climate plans even reference that goal.
Renewables now make up about 31.8 per cent of global power generation – overtaking coal as the leading source of electricity. But across all sectors, modern renewables represent only 13.5 per cent of total energy use.
In other words, our electricity is getting cleaner, but the rest of our energy use, especially transport and industry, still depends heavily on oil, gas, and coal. That contradiction exposes the moral and political failure at the heart of global climate action: We are trying to build the new without letting go of the old.
Even within the renewables boom, inequity runs deep. Of the 585 gigawatts of new renewable capacity added in 2024, nearly 90 per cent came from China and OECD countries. Africa holds just 70 gigawatts, 1.6 per cent of the world’s total.
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Three-quarters of renewable investment remains concentrated in China, the EU, and the US. This is not just an economic gap – it is also a profound injustice. Some 666 million people on the continent still live without reliable electricity, and almost 1 billion rely on polluting fuels to cook. Without access to clean energy, there can be no development or resilience.
COP30 is not just another climate summit, it’s the first since the landmark July 2025 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice, which affirms that governments have a legal obligation to take ambitious climate action consistent with human rights and environmental law. That ruling gives moral and legal weight to what climate justice advocates have long said: Equity and rights must sit at the heart of energy policy. COP30 outcomes must reflect this.
But justice needs financing, and that’s where progress has stalled most. COP29’s finance talks delivered a weak outcome: A pledge to mobilise $300 billion a year by 2035, far below the trillions needed annually by developing countries.
Worse still, most of that money is expected to come from private finance, not public grants. This is a problem because private capital typically seeks quick returns, not long-term social benefits like energy access or community resilience. This risks deepening inequality and leaving the poorest countries without the means to build a sustainable future.
At COP30, leaders must agree on new mechanisms for high-quality public climate finance distributed through grants, not loans, aligned with Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, which makes such support a legal obligation for developed countries. Responding to Africa’s debt crisis, enforcing fair trade rules, and lowering borrowing costs are not side issues, they are structural conditions for a just transition.
One promising proposal is the creation of the Belém Action Mechanism (BAM) for Just Transition, a concrete UNFCCC platform to translate principles of equity, inclusion, and rights into real action.
Ms Milongo is Senior Manager of Energy Transition at Climate Action Network