The second Africa Climate Summit (ACS2), held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, brought together over 25,000 delegates from across the continent and beyond. The Summit concluded with the landmark Addis Ababa Declaration, in which African Heads of State positioned the continent not as one waiting for solutions, but as one ready to provide solutions to address climate change, provide leadership and innovation. Africa was presented as a continent ready to leapfrog into a low-carbon future, anchored in resilience and green development.
The symbolism of hosting the Summit in Addis Ababa, one of the few nations never colonized, was powerful. Ethiopia’s own transformation, with electric vehicles now a common sight on its streets and households able to charge them from their homes, showcased the spirit of African-led innovation. This vision was reinforced by the Declaration’s call for Africa to become a global hub for low-carbon manufacturing, renewable energy, and green trade, building on frameworks like the African Continental Free Trade Area.
What made this year’s Summit especially significant was its inclusivity. Civil society voices, Indigenous peoples, women, youth, and local communities were recognized alongside governments, private sector, and international institutions. The Declaration explicitly emphasized that Africa is not merely a victim of climate change, but a resource-endowed continent capable of shaping solutions from scaling renewable energy capacity to 300 GW by 2030, to leading on adaptation, climate finance reforms, and nature-based solutions
The Addis Ababa Declaration builds on the Nairobi Declaration of 2023 but pushes the agenda forward with greater urgency. It explicitly reframes Africa’s role: not merely as a climate-vulnerable continent, but as a resource-rich, solutions-driven hub with the potential to lead the global green transition.
The Declaration reaffirmed that Africa contributes the least to global greenhouse gas emissions, yet suffers the worst impacts of climate change. This asymmetry, described as a “risk multiplier” for peace and security, underscores the demand for equitable climate finance, debt relief, and recognition of Africa’s development needs. The message was clear: climate finance must be a legal obligation, not charity
However while the Addis Declaration was historic, it also left important gaps and tensions.Silence on Fossil Fuels: Despite fossil fuel projects like the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), Tilenga, and Kingfisher developments continuing to displace communities and degrade ecosystems, the Declaration did not explicitly confront fossil fuel expansion within Africa. This silence risks undermining its calls for a “green first” pathway.
While the African leaders underscored the need to foster nature-based solutions and local based green innovations, it fails to address the ongoing ecosystem degradation and community displacement driven by such oil and gas projects. The declaration warns that climate change is a “risk multiplier” for peace and security, yet ignores how fossil fuel projects themselves can increase tensions over land and resources at the grassroots level.
For a country like Uganda which is greatly affected with impacts of climate change should align it Just energy transition strategy to prioritise off-grid solar solution scale up and other climate smart green developments as opposed to fossil fuel energy sources .
Following our recent engagements with Tilenga affected youth and women oil affected communities, women still suffer from lack of access to clean water due to continued contamination of water sources by the developments, over 20 houses report to be negatively impacted by the surrounding flow line installation and periodic dusts. A number of communities affected by the central processing facility have reported many complaints in regards to the Tilenga project in Buliisa district which they claim water flowing from the Central Processing Facility floods their gardens. Concerning land compensation, the compensation rate being used is less than that used during the land acquisition by Uganda National Roads Authority – which is also a government agency. It should be noted that the Land acquisition for the TILENGA project which is being executed by the Atacama and Total excludes most of the project affected persons. A lot of errors have been noted including for example the majority of the houses were categorized as secondary rather than primary residences, despite the fact that the majority of the project affected persons lived there during the assessment process. The implication of this is that the project has constructed new houses for project affected persons whose residences are categorized as primary residences. For a secondary residence, it is cash compensation. increased human-wildlife conflicts and killing of animals by motorists among others have been seen within and outside Murchison Falls National Park (MNFP) due to ongoing oil-related activities.
Carbon Markets as Revenue Streams: The Declaration strongly promoted high-integrity carbon markets and the Africa Carbon Market Initiative as potential income streams for African countries. While these could unlock financing, many civil society voices remain concerned about carbon markets commodifying African land and forests, while delivering little to frontline communities while also targeting to export pollution to other countries and not really contributing to addressing the root causes of climate change
The declaration’s strong calls for adaptation finance loss and damage support are undermined domestically by investments that lock the nation into a carbon-intensive pathway, increasing vulnerability to the very climate impacts the declaration seeks to address. The projects threaten climate change directly contravening the declaration’s goals for food security and climate-resilient agriculture.
For grassroots communities in Uganda’s project-affected areas, the disconnect between the high-level “green” rhetoric endorsed by their government in Addis Ababa and the on-the-ground reality of fossil fuel development will deepen disillusionment and social unrest. The summit’s call for a just transition that minimises and manages climate-related impacts rings hollow for those facing immediate displacement and environmental damage from oil extraction.
In conclusion, the Addis Ababa Declaration stands as a testament to Africa’s collective climate ambition but remains a flawed instrument due to its unwillingness to confront the internal fossil fuel expansion. For Uganda, the summit’s outcomes offer little protection against the alarming threats of oil and gas development. Without a continental dialogue that addresses a managed and just phase out of fossil fuels, the “green first” future so eloquently described in the declaration will remain an unattainable dream for its grassroots communities, who are left to face the consequences of projects that the continent’s premier climate gathering chose to ignore.
JOY NABULO
Environment Governance Institute
