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Africa’s debt burden limits its capacity to finance climate adaptation and mitigation plans, according to the latest edition of New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)’s annual publication.
Amid the escalating climate crisis, African nations are grappling with severe economic and financial hardships. This is making them dependent on borrowings from foreign countries and multilateral institutions, creating a vicious circle that hinders their ability to invest in climate resilience, adaptation and the low-carbon transition.
Often, this cycle is forcing these countries to borrow further for disaster recovery, mounting their debt burden, State of Africa’s Environment 2025, released in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on September 18, 2025, noted.
Going by each country’s share of the world’s cumulative CO2 historical emissions (based on fossil emissions) for the period from 1750 to 2021, and based on fossil emissions, Sub-Saharan Africa contributed just 1.9 per cent of the world’s emissions. And it mostly came from South Africa (1.3 per cent) while 48 other African countries contributed just 0.6 per cent
Notwithstanding the shrinking carbon budget and the appropriation of the atmospheric commons, the Africa continent will endure disproportionate loss and damage due to climate impacts, according to State of Africa’s Environment 2025.
It added that the mid to long-term effects of climate change are expected to drag down the gross domestic product (GDP) of most African nations by 2-5 per cent annually by 2030. The GDP of 65 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America that are vulnerable to climate change may reduce by 19.6 per cent by 2050 and 63.9 per cent by 2100 with current climate policies, according to a report published by Christian Aid, a non-governmental organisation in 2021.
“Eight of the top 10 most affected countries are in Africa and the other two in South America. All the 10 countries — Sudan, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Suriname, Guyana, Guinea — face GDP damage of over 70 per cent by 2100 under our current climate policy trajectory and of 40 per cent even if the world keeps to 1.5°C,” said the publication.
Africa will require $50 billion a year to survive the onslaught of extreme weather events, diseases and loss of livelihood sources in case the global temperature rise does not exceed 2°C, said the World Bank’s Africa Climate Business Plan. The amount will rise to a humongous US $200 billion if global warming continues unabated over the next few decades.
State of Africa’s Environment 2025 cited a report titled World Economic Situation and Prospects released in January 2025 and published by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) in partnership with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the five United Nations regional commission.
It stated that African nations are projected to spend close to 30 per cent of their revenue servicing debts in 2025.
Close to 25 countries in Africa have net interest payments exceeding 10 per cent of revenue, the report highlighted. This came against subdued growth prediction, with 1.4 per cent growth expected in 2025 from 0.7 per cent in 2024
Claver Gatete, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General who is also the ECA Executive Secretary, said estimates by the Group of 20 (G20) economic bloc were that for Africa to make meaningful progress, it needed an additional spending of $1.8 trillion for climate action and $1.2 trillion for development financing by 2030