Epicenter of Climate Injustice and Innovation

Africa is the prime example of climate injustice. Traditionally, we hear something like this in global climate headlines…

Home to one-fifth of the world population but producer of less than 3 percent of global energy-related carbon emissions, Africa constantly faces climate devastation. In the last few years alone, the continent endured floods in Libya in the north to ongoing drought in southern Africa. Ironically, the region is endowed with natural resources that could accelerate renewable energy production but still has 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa living without electricity.

What we don’t hear as often is this:


The African continent is a hotbed of climate innovation. Côte d’Ivoire’s Lifi-LED produces renewable-powered light and WiFi, while tracking weather data to inform disaster warnings. Sierra Leone’s Optim Energy converts the kinetic energy of traffic into clean power. In fact, Africa’s natural resources are necessary to power the global energy transition. The continent is home to about 60 percent of the world’s best sources of solar, hydropower, and geothermal energy, plus minerals necessary for electric vehicles and other technology. Youth leaders, spearheading the world’s youngest population, are increasingly engaged in environmental advocacy and activism.


In conversations about global warming, climate professionals need to highlight Africa’s many strengths as well as its challenges. In my field, public health, a deficit-based approach focuses on the health problems within a community. Asset-based approaches start from the advantages of the community and examine how they can be leveraged in grassroots solutions.
 The asset versus deficit-based approach certainly applies to international climate justice. Given that international institutions often fail the most climate-vulnerable nations, developing countries must use their strengths to tackle climate loss and damage through grassroots initiatives. African nations have been doing just that.
 Recently, at the Youth Sustainable Development Conference in Morocco, known as YSDC 2024, I was reminded that Africa is a place of power, innovation, and hope for climate action. As a new graduate hoping to enter community-oriented environmental health work, the Morocco meeting underscored the importance of starting from strengths to create community change.

Youth power was showcased during YSDC 2024 day two, which was reserved for the African Youth Climate Hub (AYCH) incubator program. The program supports young African entrepreneurs in developing climate-tech startups. The impressive 2024 cohort of nine entrepreneurs pitched their innovative solutions to a captivated audience, presenting innovations such as banana stem paper, an AI-powered app to advise farmers, and other projects.


The conference’s host organizations don’t view youth climate advocates with the common perspective of older generations, who dismiss youth as too idealistic, angry, and inexperienced. Instead, these organizations view young people as the drivers of change and empower them to take the wheel.

In the fight against climate change, Africa holds expertise, solutions, and power. Global climate policy discussions must be reframed to focus not only on Africa’s climate disasters and funding shortages but also on the power of its vast resources and passionate youth. Africans are “solutions-providers, not solutions-recipients,” Princess Djigma said in her closing remarks. “Youth are the decision-makers of today.”