Africa Must Shift From Climate Participation To Agency – Onuigbo

The President of GLOBE Legislators International (GLI) and two-term member of the House of Representatives,  Sam Onuigbo, has called on Africa to move from climate participation to climate agency by shaping the rules, institutions, finance and implementation pathways that determine the continent’s future.

In a statement issued, Onuigbo said Africa’s climate future “will not be granted by pledges made elsewhere, nor rescued by interventions we wait for.”

“It will be built, financed, governed and defended by Africans, on terms Africa itself has written,” he said.

He quoted General Murtala Muhammed’s 1976 charge that “the fortunes of Africa are in our hands to make or mar.”

Onuigbo said international climate diplomacy has produced conventions, NDCs and net-zero commitments, but Africa’s central question is now about implementation.

“It is no longer whether governments recognise the climate crisis, but whether the institutions, financing, technologies and political will needed actually exist, and who controls them,” he added.

He defined climate priorities as what Africa needs, and climate agency as what Africa decides, designs, builds and defends for itself.

“Participation means Africa is present at the table. Representation means Africa’s interests are counted. Agency means Africa sets terms rather than merely responding to terms set elsewhere,” he stated.

Onuigbo said the law translates ambition into governance by establishing the National Council on Climate Change under the Presidency.

“Climate policy cuts across every sector. Without clear coordinating authority, implementation is weakened by overlapping mandates,” Onuigbo said.

He also referenced Nigeria’s floods of 2012, 2022 and 2024 as proof that adaptation must move from reaction to anticipation.

Onuigbo highlighted flood-risk mapping, early-warning systems, wetlands protection and climate-responsive budgeting as measures to reduce vulnerability and losses.

He outlined five priorities for Africa: shaping accreditation and disbursement rules of climate funds, defining climate finance beyond headline pledges, setting Article 6 carbon-market rules, coordinating climate-trade policy under AfCFTA, and grounding adaptation metrics in African realities of food security, water and resilient cities.

“The Belém,Antalya, Addis roadmap must lead from declarations to delivery, from ambition to institutions, from needs to instruments, and from representation to authorship,” he said.

He proposed an African Climate Implementation Compact, a project-preparation facility, and an adaptation investment pipeline backed by African capital.

“Success will not be measured only by declarations adopted, but by whether a farmer is better protected, a community has reliable energy, and a young African can build a green enterprise,” he said.

“Climate leadership is not simply asking for a better global system. It is building one with African institutions, African decisions, and African authority at the centre,” he added.