In October this year (2025), Johannesburg, South Africa will host what may become one of the most consequential gatherings in Africa’s climate finance journey. The newly launched Carbon Markets Africa Summit (CMAS), organized by the VUKA Group, is expected to position Africa at the center of a fast-evolving global carbon economy. Scheduled for October 21 to 23, the summit comes at a moment of both urgency and opportunity: the world is recalibrating its approach to climate finance under the Paris Agreement’s Article 6, while Africa holds some of the richest, yet underutilized, carbon assets.
The African continent offers immense sequestration potential, from its dense forests to vast grasslands and carbon-rich wetlands. If responsibly harnessed, these natural assets could fund development priorities, strengthen resilience, and contribute meaningfully to the global push for net-zero emissions. Despite the promise, Africa still plays a marginal role in international carbon trading.
The barriers are well-known. Carbon markets are no longer the informal frontier they once were. Today, entry requires understanding a sophisticated web of validation protocols, fluctuating credit prices, and a growing emphasis on accountability and integrity. Olivia Tuchten, Principal Climate Change Advisor at Promethium Carbon, explains the stakes: “This isn’t mining or retail. The returns, timelines and requirements are different. There’s money to be made and good to be done, but only if stakeholders upskill and understand the process.”
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That is precisely the gap CMAS aims to close. Far from being just another conference, it arrives at a time when the global architecture of climate finance is shifting. With the upcoming G20 Leaders’ Summit and COP30 on the horizon, the summit is set to help African stakeholders align their technical positions and policy priorities. These platforms will debate critical issues, from carbon border adjustment mechanisms to the standardization of international credit markets, decisions that will ripple into African economies. A united and informed African voice is no longer optional; it’s essential.
To that end, CMAS will kick off with a closed-door Ministerial Roundtable, bringing together African ministers of environment, climate, and finance. The aim is to align policy approaches, amplify Africa’s interests, and prepare for upcoming multilateral negotiations. The summit is also designed to move beyond talk, with curated investor roundtables, project showcases, and hands-on workshops. The goal is simple – to turn conversations into transactions.
Even so, funding remains a bottleneck. According to Dr. Olufunso Somorin of the African Development Bank, this is a structural issue that must be fixed. “Africa is still not maximizing its potential. One of the challenges is that many project developers have good ideas, but they lack the resources to turn them into investable projects,” he said. To help close that gap, the Bank has launched the African Carbon Support Facility, with an initial capitalization of $100 million. The initiative will provide early-stage financing, assist in project validation, and support countries as they craft market-enabling policies.
That kind of targeted support is critical. At present, most African carbon projects are either externally financed or operate under fragmented national policies. Institutions like Standard Bank believe carbon markets could unlock a more sustainable financing future for Africa. “The carbon markets provide Africa with the ability to monetize its significant carbon sequestration potential to fund socio-economic development and badly needed adaptation,” said Lawrence Cole-Morgan, the bank’s lead for carbon trading.
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This optimism is echoed by Andrew Ocama of the Eastern Africa Alliance on Carbon Markets and Climate Finance, who notes that African countries are at different levels of readiness but share a common interest in leveraging carbon finance to drive measurable outcomes. According to him, carbon markets offer something increasingly rare in international development—an accountable, performance-based mechanism with clear environmental and economic returns.
The summit is being guided by a heavyweight advisory board featuring experts from across the continent and beyond. They include leaders from the African Development Bank, FSD Africa, UNDP, Verra, and various private-sector firms involved in verification, trading, and project finance. Their focus is on ensuring the summit reflects Africa’s diversity, of geography, readiness, and ambition.
With more than two decades of experience organizing business-to-business events across Africa, the VUKA Group is positioning CMAS as a flagship platform. Previous efforts like the Green Economy Summit and Enlit Africa have helped catalyze conversations across sectors. This time, the stakes are even higher.
Whether Africa seizes this moment depends on its ability to coordinate internally while engaging globally. CMAS could mark a turning point, where the continent shifts from being a passive supplier of carbon credits to a strategic co-architect of the rules that govern them.
