The conversation about Africa’s climate future is shifting from potential to preparedness. Ahead of the Carbon Markets Africa Summit (CMAS) set for October 22–23 in Johannesburg, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has announced a partnership aimed at one clear goal; helping African governments become carbon market ready.
For UNDP, this partnership represents a defining step in the continent’s attempt to claim a fairer stake in the global carbon economy, one estimated to be worth over $100 billion annually by 2030. Africa currently contributes less than 5% of global carbon credit supply, despite holding vast natural assets in forests, wetlands, and renewable energy potential that could underpin credible emissions reductions. UNDP’s message is straightforward: this imbalance is not inevitable, but it will take strong governance, technical clarity, and regional coordination to change it.
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Maxwell Gomera, UNDP Resident Representative in South Africa and Director of the Africa Sustainable Finance Hub, framed the issue sharply. “It’s 2025, and we can send people to the moon and build driverless cars, yet millions of Africans still lack access to clean cooking energy. This is a solvable problem, and carbon markets can be part of the solution,” he said. His point underlines the paradox at the heart of Africa’s climate challenge: abundant potential, constrained by limited finance.
The CMAS, organized by VUKA Group with UNDP as host partner, seeks to shift that equation by strengthening the entire carbon market value chain. The summit will bring together regulators, investors, development partners, and project developers from across Africa and beyond, from early movers in voluntary carbon markets to institutions shaping Article 6 frameworks under the Paris Agreement.
At the center of these discussions is a technical and moral question: how can Africa design carbon markets that generate real emissions reductions while ensuring that the financial benefits flow back to local communities?
UNDP argues that the continent must prioritize high-integrity markets, systems that are transparent, verifiable, and fair. The Africa Sustainable Finance Hub has been working with governments to develop regulatory frameworks that align with global best practices while recognizing Africa’s specific development needs. Countries like Kenya, Gabon, and Ghana have already begun crafting Article 6-compliant mechanisms to position themselves in this emerging market.
In a pre-summit CARBON 101 masterclass on October 21, Bernardin Uzayisaba, UNDP’s Carbon Market Specialist, will lead sessions unpacking why timing is critical for Africa. As global carbon prices rise, with voluntary market credits averaging $15–$25 per tonne and compliance markets higher still, countries that delay risk being priced out or marginalized by stricter international standards. Uzayisaba notes that Africa’s early engagement can prevent the continent from being “a passive source of offsets for global emitters” and instead make it a co-designer of the market rules.
On the main conference stage, Gomera will deliver a keynote on how carbon markets can serve as a financing bridge between climate action and economic inclusion. His argument builds on growing evidence: properly structured, carbon markets can mobilize billions in private capital to support reforestation, clean cooking, renewable energy, and sustainable agriculture projects. The key, he insists, is to build African capacity not only to generate credits but also to trade, price, and reinvest them domestically.
The Summit’s agenda mirrors this ambition. Sessions will explore the evolution of national carbon frameworks, the operationalization of Article 6 mechanisms, and the role of the private sector in creating credible projects. Workshops like “How African Companies Can Enter the Carbon Market,” co-led by Tomas Sales, Special Advisor to the UNDP Africa Sustainable Finance Hub, will guide corporates and SMEs on structuring bankable carbon ventures, an area where African firms have historically lagged.
Discussions will also extend into the AFOLU (Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use) space, where Africa’s potential is immense. With nearly 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land, countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, and Mozambique could generate large-scale nature-based credits, if frameworks for land rights, verification, and benefit-sharing are secured.
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Challenges still remain formidable; Carbon markets are technically complex and often politically sensitive. Past scandals involving poor-quality offsets have damaged trust globally, while weak governance in parts of Africa risks repeating those mistakes. UNDP’s approach focuses on institutional readiness, ensuring that ministries, regulators, and local actors understand how to verify emissions reductions, prevent double-counting, and distribute benefits fairly.
This focus on governance explains why CMAS is drawing institutional heavyweights like AUDA-NEPAD, UNEP, and national regulators. It also explains why Sweden’s International Climate Cooperation unit, represented by Sandra Lindström of the Swedish Energy Agency, is emphasizing long-term collaboration with African counterparts on emissions trading and policy harmonization.
As Gomera observed, “Africa no longer waits for promises to be kept — we act.” That sentiment captures the broader shift underway: from being passive recipients of climate finance to active market participants defining the rules of engagement.
For Africa, carbon markets are not a silver bullet, but they could be one of the most practical tools available to finance the continent’s low-carbon transition. The continent’s estimated $2.5 trillion climate investment gap by 2030 cannot be bridged by public finance alone. Well-regulated carbon markets, built on integrity and equity, could provide part of the answer, channeling revenue into community resilience, clean energy access, and biodiversity protection.
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As the Carbon Markets Africa Summit convenes in Johannesburg, it is becoming clear that Africa’s carbon story will not be written in policy papers alone, but in the decisions governments make today about how to value their natural capital. The real test will be whether those decisions deliver tangible benefits, not just for balance sheets and investors, but for the millions of Africans who stand to gain or lose from how the continent chooses to price its carbon future.
