African Futures Lab at COP30

African nations contribute less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions yet face widespread devastation. Communities and states across the continent are bearing the full brunt of the crisis, through worsening desertification, heatwaves, floods, droughts, and the destruction of biodiversity. On a human and economic level, the losses caused by extreme climate events are enormous, reaching up to 5% of annual GDP in some African nations, while the estimated financial needs to respond lie between 187 and 359 billion US dollars annually. Meanwhile Africa receives only a small fraction of climate finance needed, often in the form of debt-creating loans. This disparity is an unfair, direct violation of basic human rights and a continuation of structural injustice.

African Futures Lab will be on the ground at COP30 in Belém, Brazil; an Afro-descendant and Amazonian city to advance an African-led vision of climate justice . The climate crisis is rooted in colonial extraction, racialized exploitation, and structural inequality, yet all too often this reality is invisibilized in the negotiations and in global climate action. 

Our work at COP30 aims to shift the global climate narrative from one of aid and charity to one of structural transformation rooted in reparative justice.  We see COP30 as a pivotal space to connect African struggles with those of Afro-descendant and Indigenous peoples across Latin America, the Caribbean, and the broader Global South. Together, these movements can amplify calls for accountability, solidarity, and systemic change.