The Paris Climate Agreement heightens development challenges in Africa

Hippolyte Fofack

Published: June 2016

Although the Paris Agreement lacks a binding mechanism for capping carbon emissions, and a legally binding financial commitment to support climate change adaptation and mitigation in the developing world, it establishes a legal framework to accelerate the transition towards a low-carbon economy at the global level. The rise of the green economy under the proposed Agreement offers tremendous opportunities for growth and economic development, especially for Africa, which has abundant endowments of renewable energy and resources. African countries’ ability to seize these opportunities and accomplish the transition to the low-carbon development economy articulated in the Agreement will depend on their capacity to increase their access to carbon-free technologies and to draw consistently on these technologies to expand the scope of green investments in support of structural transformation and trade diversification.