Gov. Hope Uzodinma of Imo State bas received a “Climate Change Champion” award from the United Nations of Youth Network at the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP30) in Belem, Brazil.
Mr. Tony Velasco, the Global Coordinator of the network, said the award recognises Uzodinma’s efforts in promoting climate action and sustainable development, which include the launch of the “Hope Green Revolution” initiative in Imo.
Receiving the award on behalf of the governor, Dr Emeke Mandella, the Commissioner for Youth Development and Talent Hunt in Imo, described the Uzodinma’s perspective to scientifically introduce carbon capturing plants as excellent.
The award ceremony at COP30
According to him, Uzodinma’s ideology to launch the Hope Green Revolution Project on Nov.1, 2022 as natural solution to increase tree planting, was the best.
“Trees absorb CO2, provide barriers, protection and food.
“This under-scored his commitment to administrative policies that promote climate change mitigation. He mandated the 27 Local government council Chairmen to plant a minimum of 10,000 trees, every six months.
“He carried out land recoveries, forest protection and tree preservation. Trees play a crucial role in producing oxygen and absorbing carbon dioxide through the process of photosynthesis, which is essential for life on Earth.
“These above, strengthened His Excellency’s vision to launch the Hope Green Revolution Project on Nov. 1, 2022, which under-scored his commitment to administrative policies that promote climate change mitigation,“ he said.
According to him, the project to plant 30 million trees has been domesticated by the Imo State Ministry of Youth Development through massive climate change awareness campaigns by driving youths to show their positive concerns as climate change champions.
“To drive the climate change mitigation campaign and awareness further, we have introduced Project One Youth, One Tree.
“Knowing Nigeria as the most populous black nation on earth, above 60% of her population are youths with the energy, exploratory, innovative and domineering mindset to take on any task set before them.
“It is now our resolve as a youth ministry to capitalise on this strength and channel their positive energy towards climate change mitigation through tree planting,” he added.
Also speaking, Dr Goodluck Obi, the network convener, commended the ruggedness of the governor toward tree planting in Imo State , Nigeria affirming that he really deserved the award.
According to him, the effects of climate changes in Nigeria where Imo state is located in the eastern region include heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, erratic rainfall, floods, landslides, desertification and land degradation.
Obi further commended the governor for being at the front line for promoting youth involvement in climate action.
He urged other states and local governments in Nigeria to emulate Imo state governor in tree planting.
According to him, tree planting is the cheapest means of adaptation and mitigation against climate change.
He said the network had given the inaugural award to Mr Ayodele Adewale , the Chairman of Amuwo Odofin Local Government Area (LGA) in Lagos State in 2010.
He stated the government of Adewale planted and nurtured trees in all 11 wards of the local government area.
“Adewale created A green Club that was in charge of planting and nurturing the trees. There were Tree planting Clubs in Primary and Secondary Schools. He created a Special Climate Change Unit,” he added.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged the G20 leaders to lead with vision and passion to deliver on climate and economy actions.
Guterres told journalist in Johannesburg, South Africa on Friday, November 21, 2025, ahead of the official opening of the G20 Leaders’ Summit, taking place on the African soil for the first time.
The two-day summit, which opens on Saturday, comes at a febrile moment in global politics.
UN Secretary-General, António Guterres
“Now is the time for leadership and vision,” he said.
The G20 bloc is made up of the world’s largest economies, although the United States has announced it will not officially participate.
This year’s summit highlights the need for climate adaption and sustainable financing, under the theme “Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability.”
The UN chief is attending the summit to push for economic and climate action, as well as an end to spiralling conflicts around the world.
Developing countries, in particular in Africa, are suffering from a shrinking fiscal space, crushing debt burdens and a global financial architecture that is failing them, Guterres said.
The UN chief lamented that after decades of colonial rule, the continent remains “woefully under-represented” in global institutions.
“The G20 can help repair this historic injustice and drive reforms that give developing countries – and Africa in particular – a real voice in shaping global policies, and make global economic governance more inclusive, representative, equitable and effective in the years ahead,” he said.
Guterres called on the G20 to live up to commitments made in June at the Financing for Development Confrence in where countries promised to unlock more finance to drive sustainable growth.
That would entail tripling the lending power of multilateral development banks, reducing borrowing costs and enabling developing countries to mobilise domestic resources.
Countries have failed to keep temperatures to the 1.5 degrees Celcius temperature rise limit, Guterres cautioned.
“Avoiding more climate chaos means bridging the adaptation gap – urgently” and that requires a scale up of financing, namely, the doubling of adaptation financing to at least $40 billion this year.
He added that while 90 per cent of new power capacity is coming from renewables, while global investment in clean energy reached $2 trillion last year, only a negligeable proportion went to Africa.
“Africa should be at the heart of this clean energy revolution,” he pressed.
Listing some of the most devastating conflicts around the world including in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ukraine and Gaza, Guterres called for G20 members to use their influence to end the fighting.
“Everywhere – from Haiti to Yemen to Myanmar and beyond – we must choose peace anchored in international law,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, Vice-President Kashim Shettima is in Johannesburg, South Africa, for the G20 Leaders’ Summit.
The Vice-President, who will represent President Bola Tinubu at the summit, is scheduled to engage foreign leaders and development partners on issues relating to the economy, security, climate change, among others.
On arrival at the Waterkloof Air Force Base in Johannesburg, Shettima was received by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun; and Chargé d’Affaires, Amb. Alexander Ajayi.
Others are Consul General, Amb. Umar Bashir; the Defence Adviser, Commodore Ibrahim Ari-Gwaska; and the Chief Director, West Africa Directorate, Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), Nyameko Goso.
Also at the airport to welcome the Vice-President are the South African Minister of Small Business Development, Ms Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, among other government officials.
The summit, scheduled to hold from Nov. 22 to 23 at the Johannesburg Expo Centre, will feature leaders from the world’s top 20 economies.
The event will also be attended by the representatives from the European Union, the African Union and key financial institutions.
The theme of the two-day summit is, “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability,” and will afford participants, including Vice-President Shettima, the opportunity to deliberate extensively on issues concerning the economy, financing for development and debt burden.
The Vice-President is expected to hold bilateral meetings during the summit in furtherance of the Renewed Hope Agenda and to discuss regional and international peace, security, and development.
Shettima will return to Nigeria at the end of the engagements.
The Global Investments in clean energy are projecting a $1 trillion for grids, storage toward quadrupling sustainable fuels by 2035.
This is contained in an executive summary of the outcomes report on Global Climate Action Agenda at the 30th Conference of Parties in Belem, Brazil.
According to the report, thedeveloping countries are leading the race on industrial decarbonisation, tens of thousands of electric vehicles, thousands of gigawatts of renewable energy, hundreds of clean industrial projects, novel carbon removal technologies.
Power grid lines
“Under the COP30 Global Climate Action Agenda, the Green Grids Initiative launched at COP26, and the Utilities for Net Zero Alliance (UNEZA) launched at COP28, united with the Clean Energy Ministerial, IRENA, the IEA and others to deliver a global plan.
“The global plan is to accelerate expansion and resilience of power grids and invest $1 trillion to triple their collective renewable capacity by 2030.
“This is what it takes to transition the energy, transport and industry sectors away from fossil fuels, enabling increased energy access,“ he said.
The report said hundreds of million hectares of forest, land and ocean were protected or restored while millions of farmers were transitioning to regenerative agriculture practices.
It said traditional communities and Afro-descendant groups secured land rights of millions of Indigenous peoples.
It further said that a total of $9 billion in committed investment, covering more than 210 million hectares of land.
“Also, reaching 12 million farmers across more than 90 agricultural and food commodities building resilience across entire value chains in over 110 countries by 2030.
“This is how we steward forests, oceans and biodiversity, and how we transform the agriculture and food systems,” it said
The report pointed out that 437.7 million people became more resilient than to the race to resilience campaign.
According to the report, 162 companies, cities, and regions covering 25,000 buildings and $400 billion in annual turnover cut over 850,000 tonnes of CO₂ in 2024, surpassing one million tonnes reduced in total.
“The CHAMP coalition launched at COP28, delivered two-thirds of new nationally determined contributions with stronger subnational and urban content among its 78 members.
“Millions of jobs created, new skills developed to build resilience for cities, infrastructure and water, while fostering human and social development,” the report said.
According to the report, trillions of dollars pivot into the transition with new partnerships and innovation to scale finance from the private sector, governments, and financial institutions, including for adaptation finance.
“This is how climate action begins to function as an economy in its own right one that unleashes finance, technology and capacity-building to reward protection and long-term stability,” it said.
As the 2025 G20 Leaders’ Summit officially opens on Saturday, November 22, 2025, on African soil for the first time in history, African civil society, climate movements, and community organisations are sending an urgent message: Africa cannot confront the climate crisis while suffocating under unsustainable debt and loan-driven climate finance.
Climate justice must be debt-free, delivered through grants, not loans.
Thirty-three partners from across the African Climate Network, including 350Africa.org, Fair Finance Coalition of Southern Africa, Climate Justice Coalition, Botshabelo Unemployed Movement, Middelburg Environmental Justice Network and NuClimate vision, Newcastle Environmental Justice, Marikana Youth development organisation, released a joint open letter calling on G20 governments to urgent, justice-centred action, beginning with comprehensive debt relief and an immediate, systemic shift from climate loans to grant-based finance.
G20 Summit
Alia Kajee, Global Campaign Project Manager for 350.org, cautioned the leaders, saying, “The G20 kicks off in Johannesburg as COP30 enters its final days. This timing is critical. We call on the leaders currently at COP30 to take the momentum and passion from these negotiations directly to the G20 and ensure a binding commitment is made to deliver debt-free climate finance.
“Continued fossil fuel extraction is driving the climate crisis beyond the limits of a livable planet. African countries cannot be expected to respond to climate crises while trapped under suffocating levels of debt. We demand grants, not loans, as the only equitable solution. The G20 must show the political will to make the transition away from fossil fuels, backed by over 80 Parties at COP30, credible through grant-based debt justice.”
The G20 represents a shifting balance of global power, and momentum worldwide is moving decisively toward a transition away from fossil fuels. But that transition must be just. Without a complete phaseout of fossil fuels, there will be no planet left to finance and no future for the communities already on the frontlines.
Despite contributing only 4% of global emissions, African countries are enduring the most severe impacts: extreme droughts, deadly floods, heatwaves, cyclones, desertification, and cascading food and energy insecurity. Every shock pushes vulnerable nations deeper into debt as they borrow to rebuild destroyed infrastructure and protect communities.
Loan-driven climate finance is failing Africa. The continent needs $52–106 billion per year for climate adaptation, yet available finance remains scarce, delayed, and overwhelmingly loan-heavy, worsening the crisis Africa faces. Current flows leave a $127.2 billion annual adaptation gap through 2030.
The open letter from African Civil Society, Movements, and Partners within the 350Africa Network urges G20 leaders to commit to the following key demands:
Immediate and comprehensive debt relief for African countries.
Grants, not loans, are the primary channel for climate finance.
A fully grant-based Loss and Damage facility, accessible now.
A mandatory minimum 50% grant ratio at Multilateral Development Banks for adaptation finance.
Grant-based support for a just energy transition, including community-owned renewable energy systems, social protection for workers, and local grid investment.
In the wait for the final time-bound roadmap to phase out fossil fuels, recent developments, including President Lula’s commitment to push for a global transition plan and the Colombia Declaration, have been supported by over 80 countries, showing that global momentum is accelerating. However, African movements warn that no credible phase-out of fossil fuels will be possible without real, adequate, grant-based climate finance.
“Finance is the real blockage,” said 350Africa.org Interim South Africa Team Lead, Tshepo Peele. “We cannot phase out fossil fuels, scale renewable energy, or protect frontline communities without wealthy countries finally meeting their historic responsibility and fixing the global financial system. COP30 must deliver a funded, fair transition, and the G20 must show the political will to make that commitment a reality.”
When Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote landed in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, last week to finalise his more than $1 billion investment deal with President Emmerson Mnangagwa, he was surrounded by unfamiliar faces which many Zimbabweans could not identify.
A few unassuming Zimbabwean business executives received Dangote, with Presidential Investment Advisor Paul Tungwarara and investment facilitator Josephine Mahachi, who is a familiar face in the Zimbabwean media space.
One of the businesspeople, among several others, who received Dangote at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport was Senziwani Sikhosana, a quiet and astute Zimbabwean businessman who prefers working discreetly in the boardroom shadows rather than in the full glare of publicity and limelight.
Dangote and Sikhosana
It was only recently that the media began to ask who Sikhosana is after his actions, which spoke louder than words.
The Dangote deal amplified the question.
Before that, besides a few who may have listened to some of his public addresses, not many outside Zimbabwe’s banking and financial services sector and the complex treasury or financial engineering world knew him.
Yet he has been a quiet force to be reckoned with, working in the professional field, setting up businesses and executing big financial transactions for the last 25 years
Before the Dangote visit, Sikhosana, whom industry colleagues prefer to simply call Sikho, had made a few prominent public appearances worth noting, most notably during the London Investment Conference in April 2023 and at the launch of TX Money Transfer in Harare around mid-2024.
The London Investment Conference held at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, which he co-organised with Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Finance and the fast-growing Victoria Falls Stock Exchange, as well as a UK-based consultancy, was attended by government officials, including Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube, influential business executives, international investors, and major company representatives from Zimbabwe and British capital markets players.
He was one of the key speakers at the high-profile conference.
He grabbed the limelight at the launch of TX Money, a platform aiming to improve financial remittance reliability, transparency, and efficiency in Zimbabwe.
It is also designed to ensure financial inclusion.
But still, the real question remains: Who is Senziwani Sikhosana?
Sikhosana is currently Bard Santner Incorporated’s chief executive officer.
Bard Santner Inc. is a Harare-headquartered financial services advisory company whose business operations span corporate finance, asset and wealth management, microfinance, and remittances.
The firm also engages in various corporate social responsibilities, especially sports sponsorship, particularly football, golf and cricket.
The company is based in Harare and has an office in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa.
It also has a strategic presence through an international office in New York, United States, to facilitate international investment, offer advisory services and cut financial transactions.
Working closely with his colleagues, including Tatenda Hungwe and Lucia Chingwaru, and investment facilitator Mahachi, Sikhosana became the mastermind behind the Dangote deal.
Arranging the deal involved planning, several meetings and execution with precision.
While many – and even much bigger – deals have been consummated in Zimbabwe, the significance of the Dangote visit lay in investor confidence-building momentum, the attendant positive contagion and game-changing perception.
Bringing Africa’s richest man and the wealthiest Black person in the world, with operations in 17 countries across the continent, to Zimbabwe – after failed attempts in 2015 and 2018 – was a strategic and significant groundbreaking move.
It will not fix all Zimbabwe’s numerous challenges but will certainly provide an impactful foreign direct investment inflow, employment, and investor confidence in the economy.
Dangote’s projects in Zimbabwe span cement manufacturing, coal mining, power generation, and a fuel pipeline from the west Atlantic coast of Namibia, where he is building a big refinery, to Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe, a massive investment.
Sikhosana’s financial expertise and dedication, instrumental in bringing Dangote back to Zimbabwe after failed attempts, will be required on these projects.
His team worked tirelessly for 16 months, conducting discreet negotiations that ultimately led to the signing of a landmark agreement with the government
This savvy business manoeuvre has not only earned him recognition but also positioned Zimbabwe as an attractive investment destination and created opportunities for others.
After months of courting Africa’s leading industrialist,
Sikhosana and his colleagues finally came face to face with Dangote at the Afreximbank Annual Meetings held in Abuja in June 2025.
Subsequently, they went back to see him at his headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria, where they toured his operations at Dangote Refinery.
At that meeting, it was agreed Dangote would come back to Zimbabwe to invest, but before all that, he had to meet Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa to obtain the highest assurances, some of which would be to iron out whatever obstacles he had encountered in 2015, including mining concessions, tax incentives, technical details, work permits for experts and investment security.
Through this quiet phase of the deal-making process, Sikhosana and his team met Mnangagwa to clear the path for Dangote.
This led to Dangote’s visit to Harare last week and the signing of the investment agreement.
By training, Sikhosana is a banking and finance professional, as well as a chartered management accountant with over 25 years of experience.
He was educated at the National University of Science and Technology, where he earned a master’s degree in banking and commerce.
His expertise includes asset and liability management, fixed income, forex trading, and treasury management.
After working for various banks in Zimbabwe, including National Merchant Bank, Trust Merchant Bank, Kingdom Merchant Bank, and Interfin Merchant Bank, he went into transport logistics.
He established Burious Logistics, which grew to a peak of 40 trucks operating in southern Africa, transporting bulk goods across Zimbabwe, South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, and Namibia.
Concurrently, Sikhosana founded and operated Plastec Designs P/L, a plastics and allied products manufacturing company, as well as Refresh Industries P/L, which produced fruit juices.
This equipped him with not only knowledge of industrial operations as well as fast-moving consumer goods, but also the lived experience of 10 years of what a leader of a business conglomerate involved in trucking, manufacturing and production goes through in a challenging economic environment.
In 2016, Sikhosana went back into banking and helped to co-found Access Finance Group, which included Access Forex, where he was a shareholder and managing director.
The company had operations in Zimbabwe, South Africa and the United Kingdom.
After leaving Access Finance in 2022, Sikhosana set up Bard Santner with colleagues Hungwe, Chingwaru and Alfred Mthimkhulu, an experienced Zimbabwean asset management expert and finance lecturer from Stellenbosch University in South Africa.
Bard Santner has grown in leaps and bounds, handling huge transactions, including facilitating a $113 million property transaction involving The Grove Mall of Namibia, acquiring the Tetrad Financial Services-managed client’s portfolio, and now the Dangote deal, among many other big transactions.
Sikhosana’s experience in banking was profoundly shaped by three remarkable influences from distinguished captains of Zimbabwe’s financial sector, particularly Julius Makoni who awakened his sense of elegance and sophistication within the industry; Nigel Chanakira who anchored him and horned his technical skills and rigour in banking; and Farai Rwodzi who ignited his entrepreneurial spirit, which all define his fascinating journey in the enterprising and tumultuous business world.
Apart from learning from Makoni, Chanakira and Rwodzi, among others, Sikhosana is also getting more valuable knowledge and exposure working closely with Vinod Bussawah, a seasoned Mauritian financial executive who chairs Bard Santner.
The Mauritius-based Armed has vast experience spanning banking, logistics, manufacturing and fast-moving consumer goods.
The buccaneering Sikhosana is now with the continental industrial titan, Dangote, and is in the process of seizing the next rungs of his impressive career, helping to domesticate the Dangote Group investment portfolio in Zimbabwe through his Bard Santner, the nominated transaction advisors.
Greenpeace has called on the G20 to ramp up their plans to cut emissions and make progress on global tax reform by taxing the super-rich to unlock public finance for climate mitigation, adaptation and social justice.
Ahead of the G20 Heads of States Summit, Greenpeace Africa activists also painted “Tax The Super-Rich” on a major road leading to the Johannesburg Expo Centre, where world leaders will be gathering.
The action comes at a pivotal moment as the UN climate conference COP30 in Belém, Brazil, winds down after difficult negotiations on efforts to transition away from fossil fuels, end forest destruction and to progress climate finance for vulnerable countries.
Greenpeace action
In Nairobi, the latest round of UN Tax Convention negotiations, which could unlock vital climate funds, have shown little interest in the proposal for a global minimum tax on the super-rich. The G20 Summit in South Africa now offers President Cyril Ramaphosa a critical opportunity to lead globally on climate justice, including advancing discussions on a wealth tax and raising ambition among G20 leaders.
Fred Njehu, Fair Share Global Political Lead, Greenpeace Africa,said: “Public momentum to tax the super-rich is fast growing – the political will has to follow with concrete actions. Billionaires in Africa and beyond are getting wealthier by the day, while billions are struggling with rising cost of living and escalating climate crisis.
“Making the wealthiest pay their fair share is essential to fund the fight against the climate crisis, mobilise domestic revenues for public services, and advance sustainable development. The G20 Summit is President Ramaphosa’s opportunity to turn words into action and show that South Africa – and Africa – can lead the world and secure a place in history.”
New analysis published in a recently released G20 report shows that, between 2000 and 2024, the world’s wealthiest 1% captured 41% of all new wealth, while just 1% went to the 50% of humanity at the other end of the scale. An Oxfam report found that over the last five years in Africa, the five richest African billionaires have increased their wealth by 88%.
At the INC-3 of the UN Tax Conventions in Nairobi this month, Greenpeace called for stronger commitments to secure much-needed public finance for climate mitigation, nature protection, and sustainable development by ensuring the super-rich and corporate polluters pay their fair share in taxes. These measures could deliver on the COP29 finance commitment for developed countries to mobilise at least $300 billion per year by 2035, and to scale up to at least $1 trillion in public finance in line with needs.
Cynthia Moyo, Lead Campaigner, Greenpeace Africa, said: President Ramaphosa must seize this G20 moment to back a Fair Share approach that makes the super-rich and big polluters pay what they owe. We cannot keep socialising costs while privatising profits. African citizens deserve transparency and a tax system that truly serves them.
“We cannot fund a green and equal future with a broken tax system. Tax justice is climate justice and without bold action on a global wealth tax and making polluters pay, the resources needed to protect people, and the planet will remain out of reach.”
Ahead of the G20 Summit, Greenpeace International launched a new report, revealing the insufficient climate ambition in new 2035 emissions targets (Nationally Determined Contributions – NDCs) of the G20 countries. The report, 2035 Climate Ambition Gap, revealed the 2035 climate action plans of the G20 would yield just a 23-29% cut in emissions towards the 60% global reduction that is needed.
Attending COP30 in Belém, Tracy Carty, Climate Politics Expert, Greenpeace International,said: “When the G20 countries – responsible for 80% of global emissions – deliver collective climate action plans that fall dangerously short, the world has a problem. Given their historic responsibility for emissions and greater financial capacity to act, developed G20 countries should be out front, cutting emissions far in excess of the 60% global average needed. The choices of G20 countries, especially developed ones, will make or break the 1.5°C goal, and it’s time to hold them to account.”
Global climate negotiations stretched into overtime on Friday, November 21, 2025, as countries failed to agree on emission cuts and financial commitments, raising fears the summit will end without meaningful progress on limiting global warming.
Negotiators at COP30 are deadlocked over mitigation targets, adaptation funding and climate finance as the conference runs past its scheduled conclusion.
The impasse threatens to undermine international cooperation on climate action.
Delegates huddle during the Mutirão Mobilisation for the Belém Package
“This is not the moment for red lines – it is the moment for leadership. Parties must move out of their comfort zones and deliver a result that matches the scale of the climate crisis,” said Mattias Söderberg, global climate lead at DanChurchAid.
Draft negotiating texts released on Friday morning lack the ambition scientists say is necessary to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, according to civil society observers.
Söderberg said countries must compromise across all major issues to produce a balanced agreement.
“The world will not accept a deal that ignores the emissions gap. We need a breakthrough on mitigation now — not next year, not in the next review cycle. Now,” he said.
He warned that adaptation assistance and finance for developing nations cannot be sacrificed in final negotiations.
“A balanced package means real progress for the communities already hit by climate change. Adaptation and finance cannot be bargaining chips – they are lifelines,” Söderberg said.
The talks have exposed familiar divisions between wealthy and developing nations over who bears responsibility for emissions reductions and climate financing.
Söderberg said all parties must make concessions to reach an agreement.
“No Party can leave Belém with everything they want—but they can leave with a deal that moves the world forward,” he said.
He said the outcome will determine whether the summit strengthens or weakens global climate cooperation.
“This summit will be judged by one metric: whether it moves us closer to solving the climate crisis. There is still time — but only if parties dare to act,” Söderberg said.
The Hands Off Mother Earth! (HOME) Alliance has described COP30 as a “profound failure” as the global summit betrayed Indigenous Peoples, climate justice movements and civil society,
The stated that, instead of bold commitments to phase out fossil fuels and protect Indigenous Peoples, ecosystems and biodiversity, governments doubled down on carbon markets, biofuels, techno-fixes, and dangerous and risky geoengineering schemes.
“Carbon markets are being used to legitimize geoengineering schemes like Bio Energy and Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), Direct Air Capture (DAC), marine Carbon Dioxide Removals (mCDR), which do not address root causes of the climate crisis and pose grave risks to ecosystems, Indigenous rights, fisherfolk and local communities, and biodiversity.”
Climate action at COP30
In what has been dubbed as the “Peoples COP” and “COP of Truth”, commitments to fight the climate crisis have been wanting, and a slew of false solutions have been pushed once again as a new form of colonialism and continued extractivism, according to HOME Alliance.
“From side events to pavilions and negotiating rooms, COP30 has been entrenched with profit-driven carbon markets and their lobbyists, with at least 20 events in pavilions and side events dealing with or promoting geoengineering, be it solar radiation modification or carbon dioxide removal scams. Earlier this week CIEL released that 531 Carbon Capture and Storage lobbyists were roaming the halls of COP30 and Kick Big Polluters Out revealed that 1 in 25 attendees at COP30 was a fossil fuel lobbyist.”
HOME’s recently relaunched manifesto HOME Alliance Manifesto Against Geoengineering: Our Home Is Not a Laboratory makes it clear that Mother Earth is not a testing ground for geoengineering experiments. Launched last week, the manifesto reiterates that “we must reject geoengineering, defend mother earth, and advance real climate justice solutions”.
Aakaluk Adrienne Blatchford, Geoengineering Outreach Organizer, Indigenous Environmental Network, said: “Climate mitigation cannot be rooted in false solutions driven by extractive industries that continue to perpetuate destruction of Indigenous lands and displacement of the People who steward them. Climate solutions must be led by People that continue to live in symbiosis with our lands, water and air. In ceremony. In healing. We are demanding that our People be put in the forefront of an Indigenous led Just Transition that moves away from these colonial structures to ensure a healthy Mother Earth and Father Sky for all, for the future of our children.
“We demand our voices be heard by the United Nations, not just with performative actions by checking off boxes, but creating seats at the decision-making tables for our knowledge to be embraced as is. Geoengineering is a false solution that cannot have a seat at the table in this or any other COP.”
Jana Uemura, Climate Campaigner, Global Forest Coalition, said: “Different COP, same old story. The UNFCCC needs to be fundamentally reformed for it to retain even an illusion of legitimacy. There is no way that this process is even capable of ending deforestation, much less steering the world away from catastrophic climate change, equitably or otherwise. The corporate lobbyists must be kicked out immediately, and big polluters face up to their moral responsibilities now.”
Mohammed Usrof, Executive Director, Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy (PICS), said: “COP30 has made one truth unmistakably clear: the same governments and corporations selling carbon markets and geoengineering as ‘solutions’ are the ones enabling climate militarism, surveillance, and environmental warfare. Our investigation into the US-Israeli firm Stardust Solutions revealed how geoengineering is already entangled with defence ministries, intelligence-linked venture capital, and technologies that can be weaponised against besieged populations like Palestinians in Gaza.
“This is not climate action — it is a dangerous extension of colonial power and a chain reaction that we cannot allow to happen. As we outline in PICS’ Recognise, Resist, Rebuild Manifesto, the struggle for climate justice is inseparable from dismantling militarism, colonial extraction, and the false solutions now dominating COP30.”
Lili Fuhr, Fossil Economy Programme Director at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), said: “Fossil fuel and carbon capture lobbyists have captured and compromised the UNFCCC process, filling negotiation hallways and even taking seats on national delegations. They are delaying the phaseout of fossil fuels while pushing false solutions like Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and highly speculative geoengineering technologies marketed as atmospheric ‘carbon removal.’
“The world doesn’t need fossil-fueled tech fantasies that protect big polluters and Silicon Valley billionaires. It needs a future grounded in renewables, accountability, and justice, and a climate process with a robust conflict-of-interest policy that keeps polluters out.”
Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation, said: “COP30 erupted with flames in the halls and fires in the streets, yet negotiators still could not confront the real inferno driving the climate crisis; fossil fuels and the dangerous false solutions built to shield them. The forceful entry of Indigenous peoples demanding lands free from agribusiness, oil extraction and mining revealed the truth the COP keeps evading; those most affected remain shut out of decisions about their own survival.
“The world cannot claim climate action while indulging carbon markets, geoengineering fantasies, and financialization schemes like the TFFF that convert forests, lands and skies into commodities for speculators; these are not solutions, they are escape routes for polluters.
“Fossil lobbyists flooded the venue and turned a critical moment into a theatre of delay; the Mutirao draft avoided the hard issues and left blank spaces where courage should stand, a troubling display of political timidity in an age of escalating fires, floods and rising authoritarianism.
“If COP30 taught us anything, it is that we cannot negotiate our way out of a burning planet while clinging to the very systems that set it ablaze; we insist on a clear global commitment to phase out fossil fuels, public and grant-based climate finance, people centered adaptation, and the rejection of geoengineering and carbon trading illusions. There can be no ‘implementation COP’ without real solutions, and no climate ambition without justice.”
Mar Zepeda Salazar, Legislative Director, Climate Justice Alliance, said: “COP30 has been captured by carbon markets and corporate lobbyists, turning what should have been a breakthrough for climate justice into a playground for carbon traders and geoengineering profiteers. Geoengineering, carbon offsets, and techno-fixes are nothing more than profit-driven scams that sacrifice Indigenous Peoples, frontline communities, and Mother Earth. We reject these dangerous and unproven experiments on our lands and insist on real climate and community-led solutions that are rooted in justice not corporate manipulation.”
Dylan Hamilton, False Solutions Coordinator, Alliance of Non-Governmental Radical Youth (ANGRY), said: “It is a myth that the climate crisis can be ‘solved’ through the exact same systems that caused it. Treating the natural world as a tradable commodity, or the laws of physics as a party we can negotiate with, is a betrayal of this process and condemns millions to not only suffer climate breakdown, but to further have their lands stolen and sacrificed.”
Coraina de la Plaza, HOME Alliance Coordinator, said: “COP30 has been, once again, a showcase of false solutions, where carbon markets and other false solutions like dangerous geoengineering schemes are paraded as climate action while real solutions, including the equitable phase out of fossil fuels, are sidelined. Instead of protecting Indigenous Peoples, ecosystems, and frontline communities, governments have handed the stage to lobbyists and profiteers.
“Communities around the world are already implementing genuine, grounded solutions. The massive march on November 15 and the powerful Peoples Summit showed where true climate leadership lies: with Indigenous Peoples, frontline movements, and civil society standing shoulder to shoulder. Climate justice and real solutions begin with people, not polluters, and with solutions rooted in care, sovereignty, and resilience.”
Gary Hughes, Co-Director / Americas Program Coordinator, Biofuelwatch, said: “Our organization has watched from a distance as grandiose statements have been made at COP 30 about the importance of responding to the climate crisis, yet it is obvious that talk remains bigger than action. As a full-spectrum paradigm of false solutions is paraded in front of the world under the auspices of global climate talks Biofuelwatch remains grateful to the international civil society community that has joined the HOME Alliance to speak out against the promotion of dangerous speculative geoengineering technologies as a response to climate change”.
Kirtana Chandrasekaran, Friends of the Earth International, said: “Multilateralism means nothing so long as corporations are rolled out the red carpet and invited to write the rules in the conference halls. 1.5 stands no chance whilst these corporations and rich governments work hand in hand to block progress on any meaningful action whilst promoting false solutions.
“We stand on the door of the Amazon and yet the response we are given to the climate and biodiversity crises is more schemes that commodify nature like the Tropical Forest Forever Facility. Instead, we need to protect forests for their intrinsic value, and centre the rights of the Indigenous Peoples and local communities that are its guardians.”
Kaveri Choudhuri, ETC Group, said: “Corporations use the language of sustainability to avoid real emissions cuts. COP30 saw these same tactics again and now, alarmingly, is being turned towards our oceans – pushing untested, high-risk technological ‘fixes’ instead of genuine climate action.
“The UN and governments should uphold the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) moratorium on geoengineering and apply the precautionary principle on geoengineering under the London Convention and London Protocol. We demand the exclusion of all false ‘solutions’ from the UNFCCC platforms, especially the ones developing under the Art 6 of the Paris Agreement.”
UN chief António Guterres has called on governments to have the courage to agree a balanced political package that is concrete on funding adaptation, credible on emissions cuts, and bankable on finance.
For the first time, he rallied behind a demand from the world’s poorest countries to triple finance to help them adapt to more extreme weather and rising seas to $120 billion a year by 2030.
Addressing the COP30 Climate Change talks in Belem, Brazil, he noted that communities on the frontlines are watching the UN summit for action.
UN chief António Guterres
“Counting flooded homes, failed harvests, lost livelihoods and asking ‘how much more must we suffer?’… they have heard enough excuses, they demand results,” he stated.
For Mr. Guterres, “tripling adaptation finance by 2030 is essential.” He believes it is also possible and desirable and he hoped developed countries would accept to engage in this objective at COP30 if their concerns on emissions reductions are addressed.
The Africa Day at COP30 was marked under the theme: “Africa at the Forefront of Climate Action: Sustainable Financing for Resilient and Inclusive Green Growth”, reaffirming the continent’s united call for a new era of climate finance that delivers for people, planet, and prosperity.
Discussions focused on mobilizing sustainable, equitable, and innovative finance to accelerate Africa’s green industrialization. Leaders highlighted that Africa’s future lies in leveraging its abundant natural resources for value addition and local manufacturing from processing critical minerals to scaling renewable energy solutions.
“Africa already stands at the forefront of global climate action, shaping solutions that are both locally grounded and globally relevant,” said Dr. Kevin Kariuki, Vice President for Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth of the African Development Bank Group.
For decades, Africa’s climate narrative has been defined by contradiction. The continent hosts 20% of the world’s carbon sinks and contributes less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions yet receives under 10% of adaptation finance and only 3% of total climate funding, this shortfall carries existential consequences.
Developed countries have repeatedly failed to honour their financing commitments, and Africa’s adaptation needs continue to outpace the resources available.
The commitment of developed countries to double adaptation finance to at least $40 billion by 2025 already slipping away.
The latest estimate of developing countries’ annual climate adaptation needs for 2035 outstrips current funding by at least 12 times, with rich nations providing just $26 billion in 2023, according to the annual UN Adaptation Gap Report.
If current trends continue, developed countries are set to miss the 2025 target that they committed to at COP26 four years ago, UNEP’s report said.
As COP30 entered its final stretch, African Non-State Actors on climate justice, under the umbrella of the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance, called for “an outcome that protects our societies and economies, strengthens resilience, and advances a fair and development-centred global transition”.
The group demanded for more than triple adaptation finance by 2030, with a clear public-finance pathway, and “a fully capitalised fund for responding to Loss and Damage with new, additional, predictable finance, and as a guarantee mobilized from public sources”.
Africa CSOs are seeking a fast-track support for resilient agriculture, water and health systems, coastal protection, and community adaptation complimented with early warning systems.
“For millions, adaptation is not an abstract goal. It is the difference between rebuilding and being swept away, between replanting and starving, between staying on ancestral lands or losing it forever,” said António Guterres.
The UN chief has urged wealthy governments, climate funds and development banks to step up and prevent further tragedies.
“It’s about survival, it’s about justice – and for Indigenous peoples, it is also about protecting cultures and homelands that sustain our planet’s vital ecosystems,” he noted.
He says it is the responsibility on big emitters to do more while ramping up emissions-cutting efforts.
For 70-year-old farmer Danjuma Dauda, the Yangokuchi forest is more than just another patch of land. It embodies memory, heritage, and refuge.
“I miss the bountifulness of mango trees,” he said, recalling childhood days in the forest. “We used to run into the forest for mangoes. There were countless trees heavy with fruit.”
Yangokuchi forest, also known as the Saimami forest, in the Rubochi ward of Kuje Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nigeria, once provided both cultural identity and economic lifeline to nearby communities. It sheltered ancestors fleeing enemy invasions and later supported generations of farmers like Mr. Dauda.
Forest
Now, the forest stands on the brink of depletion, stripped by unregulated, unchecked logging that local elders say has turned a communal sanctuary into open land.
Based on a reporting trip and interviews in September 2025, Dataphyte uncovered how poor enforcement and global timber demand are rapidly eroding one of Abuja’s few remaining natural forests, with little sign of replanting or accountability.
“When I was a child, there were countless trees, including iroko, mahogany, and others,” Mr Dauda said. “They gave shade to crops like yams. When yams are shielded, they sprout better. Now the land is bare.”
He said the deforestation has affected his yields, yet the loggers continue unchecked. “Before, they sought permission from the community, but now they just go in. If you question them, they ask if you planted the trees,” he added.
Villagers across Saimami Ubo share his frustration.
Forest losses mounting
According to data from Global Forest Watch, the FCT lost about 1,760 hectares of natural forest in 2024, part of a continuing trend driven by illegal logging, farming, and development expansion. Nationwide, annual government revenue losses from illegal logging are estimated at US$191 million to $383 million.
Illegal logging in Nigeria has grown into a profitable underground economy. Organised middlemen recruit local villagers, finance cutting operations, and move hardwoods along hidden trails toward markets or export points, often beyond the eyes of regulators.
The community lost more than its trees
Yangokuchi forest was once rich in biodiversity, with medicinal and economic species such as Gmelina arborea, Khaya ivorensis (mahogany), and Milicia excelsa (iroko). These trees provided food, medicine, and materials for building and fuel. But now, there are only stumps and farmland, Dataphyte found.
“20 to 30 years ago, we had mahogany and iroko everywhere,” Mr Dauda lamented. “Now they are gone. When you confront the operators (loggers), they ask if you’re the one who planted them.”
A logger, who declined to be named because of their illegal work, confirmed that hardwoods fetch a quick profit. “If you find iroko or mahogany, you can make up to N500,000 a day. One tree gives more than a hundred timbers,” he said.
“The mahogany tree is highly sought after, and whenever there’s a market demand, these operators pursue it relentlessly,” Ibrahim Kwali, a resident of Rubochi, told Dataphyte.
The attraction is not just local. Global demand fuels much of the exploitation. Mahogany’s market value is projected to rise from US$1.3 to 1.5 billion in 2024 to 2025 to over US$2.7 billion by 2033, driven largely by the luxury furniture and flooring industries across North America, Europe, and Asia. While there are no precise figures for iroko, it remains one of the most sought-after export species.
Even once-common species like ogbono (Irvingia gabonensis) have vanished. “We used to have ogbono trees everywhere, but there’s none left,” said another resident of Rubochi. “No replanting; once the trees mature, they cut them all.”
Laws ignored, oversight absent
Nigeria’s National Environmental (Forest Sector) Regulations of 2009 mandate reforestation and environmental rehabilitation by anyone harvesting forest resources. State forestry ministries and the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) are also supposed to enforce compliance.
In practice, those rules are widely ignored. “No one is replanting,” admitted Danladi Appa, a self-described licensed logger. “Some of these trees take over 30 years to grow. How do you replant that?” He said his group pays N30,000 a year to unnamed government officials who issue a “receipt” to operate, but he could not produce the document when asked. Other loggers encountered during our reporting also did not present a licence when asked.
Community members say forest guards rarely visit. The nearest government forestry office is miles away, leaving only vigilante groups to monitor occasional logging trucks.
One vigilante member, who asked to remain unnamed to avoid retaliation from loggers, told Dataphyte his team lacks legal authority to act. “We only try to help the community,” he said.When contacted, NESREA spokesperson Amaka Ejiofor asked for written questions about the agency’s enforcement of forest regulations. An email was sent, but as of the pubication of this report, no response had been received.
