At COP31, Africa Demands Answers on Unmet Climate Pledges

When delegates convene in Antalya, Türkiye, for COP31, the annual United Nations climate summit, the central question for African governments will not be how many new billions are announced, but whether the institutions that made earlier promises can account for the money already pledged. For South Africa, that question now rests on a paper trail maintained by the Presidency’s Just Energy Transition Project Management Unit (JET PMU). The numbers it records raise uncomfortable issues of compliance and delivery, and they implicate donor governments and Pretoria alike.

Five years ago, at the 2021 climate summit in Glasgow, France, Germany, Britain, the United States and the European Union, together known as the International Partners Group (IPG), committed to mobilise an initial $8.5 billion (about R150 billion) for South Africa. The arrangement, the Just Energy Transition Partnership, was designed to reduce the country’s dependence on coal while protecting workers and communities whose livelihoods depended on it. The United States withdrew from the partnership in March 2025. The IPG was never legally bound to deliver that specific amount; its commitment was voluntary, made as part of wider international climate efforts.

What the JET PMU’s own figures show is a widening gap between commitment and allocation. By the end of March this year, recorded pledges had grown to $14.36 billion (about R254 billion), a total that includes commitments from partners beyond the original group. Yet only $6.12 billion (about R108 billion), less than half, had been allocated. Less than 7% of the pledged money was classified as grants, funding that does not have to be repaid; the rest consists largely of loans and other financing. Of the allocated amount, roughly $4.32 billion (about R76.3 billion) was recorded against individual projects and programmes. The unit’s report lists 87 completed projects and 129 being implemented, but it does not provide a single figure for money actually paid out or spent. Some funding has been promised but not yet assigned to specific projects.

The obligations at stake are not merely political. Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, wealthy industrialised nations are required to provide financial resources to help developing countries reduce emissions and adapt to climate change, an obligation rooted in their historical responsibility for a disproportionate share of greenhouse gas emissions. Africa contributes relatively little to global emissions yet faces worsening droughts, floods and unpredictable rainfall, and many of its countries are among the world’s poorest, with limited capacity to prepare for or recover from climate disasters.

How that assistance is delivered matters as much as whether it arrives. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which monitors development finance, reported that 67% of public climate finance to developing countries in 2024 came as loans, compared with 29% in grants. Oxfam argues that headline figures therefore overstate real assistance, because loans are often counted at full value rather than by the benefit they actually offer recipients. A low-interest loan for a renewable-energy power station may be a sound investment, one that generates income to service the debt. Borrowing to repair flood-damaged roads or protect farmland from drought is different: essential projects that may generate no revenue, and which can leave an already indebted country worse placed for the next disaster.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s government is testing another channel of international support. At a climate-policy consultation in Sandton in October, Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister David Maynier said the government had submitted a $20 million (about R354 million) proposal to the international Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), established to assist developing countries facing climate-related losses. The money would help restore Kruger National Park and surrounding conservation landscapes after the floods in January this year. Entitlement is not automatic: according to Maynier, more than 170 proposals seeking over $1.4 billion (about R24.8 billion) are competing for approximately $450 million (about R8 billion) available.

Accountability, however, runs in both directions. A June investigation by Oxpeckers, a South African environmental investigative journalism organisation, found that the country’s problem was not only a shortage of capital but a shortage of properly prepared projects. Neil Cole, the financing manager in the JET PMU, explained that municipalities were struggling with their finances, projects were not ready to proceed, and administrative obstacles were delaying implementation. The investigation also found uneven performance among international partners: some had committed much of their promised funding to projects, while others had made little progress.

Carbon credits, sometimes offered as an alternative income source, raise their own oversight questions. Each credit typically represents one tonne of greenhouse gas emissions reduced or removed, bought by companies and governments from projects such as forest protection or cleaner cooking stoves. Independent organisations are supposed to verify claimed reductions, but some projects have been accused of exaggerating their achievements. In late October, Kenya’s State Department for Blue Economy and Fisheries warned about weak oversight and potentially exploitative agreements between foreign carbon-trading companies and local communities, including the risk of communities signing away long-term rights over land or forests without understanding the terms.

COP31 should therefore be judged as an accounting exercise as much as a pledging one. Governments should be pressed to state how much promised finance has been received, how much is grant and how much is loan, what interest will be paid, who is responsible for repayment, and what the money has achieved. Wealthy countries should honour their commitments, and African governments should be held to the same standard in preparing credible plans and accounting for spending. Another announcement of billions will mean little if the money never reaches the projects and communities that need it.