African Activists Demand ‘End to Extractivism’ Ahead of COP30

African civil society and grassroots leaders have called on the African Group of Negotiators and global negotiators to demand an immediate halt to all fossil fuel projects and demand climate reparations from wealthy nations.

The declaration was issued in Cotonou, Benin, following the second physical African People’s Counter-COP (APCC), where over 100 representatives from 20 countries—including indigenous peoples, farmers, and youth—convened under the theme “African-Led Pathways to Climate Justice and System Change: Reclaiming Futures Beyond Extractivism.”

The African Climate Justice Collective (ACJC), which organized the gathering, directly challenged the official UN climate negotiation body, the UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP), declaring the process “co-opted by capitalism and the Global North.”

“The climate crisis ravaging Africa is not our fault; it is a debt owed by the Global North,” said Rumbidzai Mphalo, Coordinator of the ACJC.

“While we contribute minimal emissions, we endure maximum suffering. This Declaration represents our unified demand to dismantle exploitative power and reclaim our future ahead of COP30.”

Nine Non-Negotiable Demands

The APCC’s declaration, which Mphalo framed as a moral and political challenge, is a definitive set of nine demands for systemic change, moving beyond incremental reforms to target the root causes of the crisis:

1. Immediate End to Fossil Fuel Extraction: The APCC called for all exploration and production across Africa to be halted immediately, insisting the continent transition to grassroots-led, socially owned renewable energy that serves local communities first, not global export markets.
2. Climate Debt and Reparations: Global North nations must provide reparations, remediation, and compensation in the form of grants, explicitly rejecting loans that further burden African nations with debt.
3. The Right to Say No (FPIC): The declaration demands the full enforcement of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), giving every community the “legal and moral right to reject projects that threaten their land, lives, and culture.”
4. Rejection of False Solutions: The collective firmly denounced schemes that “commodify nature and deepen inequality,” including carbon trading, Net Zero policies, REDD+, waste-to-energy projects, and geoengineering.

A Call to Defend Land and People

The declaration also focused on protecting African livelihoods and sovereignty:

• Food Sovereignty: Governments were urged to reform land laws, prioritize indigenous food systems, and invest a minimum of $5 billion annually in peasant agroecology to build climate resilience and resist the incursion of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).
• Climate Finance Reform: The APCC called for global funds—including the Loss and Damage Fund—to be transparent, adequately resourced, and directly accessible to affected communities, rather than controlled by “profit-driven multilateral banks.”
• Ending Waste Colonialism: The declaration insisted that Africa must refuse to be the “world’s dumping ground,” demanding governments adopt zero-waste policies and reject the influx of obsolete technology and plastic waste from the Global North.

From the drought-stricken farmlands of the Sahel to the eroding coastlines of Ouidah in Benin, the APCC stated that the era of extraction and exploitation must end.

The ACJC is urging African governments to endorse the Declaration and present a unified, uncompromising front at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, maintaining that global financial and environmental justice is the only legitimate foundation for meaningful climate action.