Climate Change: Focus on Africa
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A valuable educational resource list for anyone interested in
peace and climate justice in Africa
The first Pan African Peace and Climate Justice Youth Summit was held August 27-30, 2025. Read about it here. For full details on the summit download the complete pdf here.
This list presents highlights of some of the talks on how African youth, women, and communities are organizing around peace and climate justice issues.
The New Terrain of Climate Justice in Africa
Prof. Patrick Bond, University of Johannesburg Centre for Social Change
G7 Western powers and the BRICS bloc are united in not cutting emissions to the extent necessary, not pricing carbon properly or acknowledging climate debt, and instead promoting dubious carbon trading and offset mechanisms. Financing planetary and social survival should include loss and damage reparations, covering the costs of adaptation and resiliency, and compensation to low-emissions countries for not using carbon. What should the price of carbon be? How might local climate justice activists help shift global debates?
How Climate Change is Destroying Africa
Dr. Jackson Kisingani
Download the information from the presentation in PDF
Africa is the most vulnerable continent to the impacts of climate change. This is the greatest injustice because we are responsible for less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, warming is happening at twice the global average. Destruction is not abstract, it is happening now: extractive destruction of forests, rivers, and soil; people killed or displaced by armed groups; profits sent to corporate headquarters abroad while Congolese are without electricity, clean water, security. This is triple exploitation - environmental, economic, and social. But Africa is not only a continent in crisis, it is a continent of hope, creativity, and resilience. We choose to organize, choose to resist, choose to innovate. We are not asking for charity but demanding climate justice. “I invite you to be part of this resistance, not as spectators, but as active allies because the fight for climate justice is also the fight for our shared humanity.”
From War Machines to Green Futures: Disarmament as Climate Justice, focus Africa
Akhar Bandyopadhyay
“I am speaking to you in a time of many wars, between nations, within nations, and over food, water, and resources.” The war machine and the fossil fuel machine are deeply connected. Resource wars are extraction masked as geopolitics with land, water, minerals at the core of conflicts. In a vicious, dangerous cycle, the more oil and gas we burn, the more wars are fought to control it; the military protects fossil fuel extraction and fossil fuel profits fund more militarism. War is a driver of carbon emissions and further ecological threats. Another world is still possible: imagine a peaceful sustainable future that is shared and collective.
Violent Conflict, Climate Change, Peace and Justice, focus Africa
Mghase Imanuel
Climate change affects the environment but also our health, food production, and access to water, in ways that can lead to conflict in our communities. One example is increased migration. Those in the most affected areas seek a place that can sustain their well-being. But not everyone can migrate, especially marginalized women, children, and youth. Both those who leave and those who remain need help. Conflicts may arise between those who migrate and the receiving community, related to means of livelihood, activities, land and resources, and social identity.
What should be done? Start from grassroots, change the culture, come up with good strategies. Develop a Peace and Climate Justice framework that can be used as a blueprint for legal and policy governance to address issues of climate justice. Share your Climate Action Plans. Also, education and training are important. Some children are not taught environmental studies; primary and secondary school and university education should fill this gap. Many government leaders, ministers, and authorities are not aware of climate impacts and need training and assistance too.
Racism fuels the Climate Crises
Amen Allah Azzoune
Don’t miss this one! Consider this: There would be no climate crisis if it weren’t for racism. It makes possible the exploitation of people, of land or resources. It makes a pyramid with white supremacy at the top, marginalized communities in the middle, nature at the bottom. Unity makes strength. L'union fait la force!
The Power of Women in the Community
Linda Charles Mapuda
Download the information from the presentation in PDF
Women are leaders in protecting the climate and peace building. Women are planting trees, restoring mangroves, protecting their environment, resolving local conflicts. Women are voices for children, families, homes. That is why there is a need to empower, educate, and train women, and to involve them in decision making. Women, organizing, can bring the world together.
Local Resistance and Climate Justice
Dr. Jackson Kisingani
We are the builders of a different future. Africa is young: 70% are under 30 years of age. Youth are on the frontline, a frontline of crisis, forced displacement, conflict, and loss of life. We know how to mobilize. Protest is visible but fades quickly; when the crowd disperses, what remains? Often nothing. Organization is something else: it is long-term, a planned shared vision. Mobilization is the spark but organization keeps the fight going. Citizens in Congo organize through protest, education, coalitions, youth action, legal advocacy, and financial justice campaigns to resist extractive projects and push for sustainable, community-led climate policies.
The Story of Self; Lessons from Marshall Ganz (and Barack Obama) (part 1)
Rolf vom Dorp
Download the information from the presentation in PDF
How do we connect our people to action? Action inhibitors include inertia, apathy, fear, isolation, self-doubt. Action motivators are urgency, anger, hope, solidarity, YCMAD (You Can Make A Difference). Motivators can overcome inhibitors. Building relations is the way to break down the distrust, distance, discomfort, and fear that lead to no action.
The story of self is the most powerful message we have to communicate with others. It’s a story from the heart, not read in a book, not something you heard and repeated. It’s a story of a challenge you faced. It’s the story of a choice you made, of commitment and determination. It’s the story of an outcome, be it learning patience, experiencing hardship, or developing friendship. The story of self becomes the story of we, of us acting together, building ties to community.
Volunteering and taking Action (part 2)
Rolf vom Dorp
A petition is your tool to build your forces. What is it and why is it important? What is the most powerful resource you have (hint: it’s not money). We use our brains, our heart, and hands. The story of self and petitions are tools for connection that build on these: petition in hand, words read by the mind, signed with a connection from the heart.
Grass roots organizing in Africa
Dr. Jackson Kisingani
A generation of young activists is rising to defend the environment, facing numerous challenges. What can be done? Dr. Kisingani discusses aims for grass roots organizers: to strengthen local capacities; to create emergency climate funds for conflict zones; to give a platform to the invisible; to support community mobilization and engagement, for example by using local languages.
Youth at the Heart of Peace and Climate Justice
Lydia Leonard
Three questions to the audience:
Can we have peace without climate justice?
What does peace and climate justice look like in your community? (in one word)
What action will you take after the summit when you go back to your community? (The listeners respond.)
When youth rise, communities thrive. Youth are creative and passionate. We are the ones who will make communities organize. If we don’t do that, no one will. We have to take action to make the community organized, united, concerned about peace and climate justice.
The Petition as an Organizing Tool
PDF file of the petition in French
Pourquoi utiliser une pétition pour aider à organiser FFF ?
En quoi cela contribue-t-il aux objectifs externes des PCJ FFF ?
Comment faire connaître votre pétition
L'organisation et le mouvement pour le climat
Processus étape par étape pour rédiger votre pétition
The State of World Climate 2025, focus Africa: the Climate Crisis is accelerating; what to expect
Stefan Sommer, PhD
In a nutshell: we are adding heat energy to the atmosphere and the oceans. Expect more extremes of every kind. The kind of droughts that set up the Syrian war and the flooding from Cyclones Freddy and Idea in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi are just examples of what we can expect. Kenya, Uganda, and most countries across Africa are experiencing these outcomes.
Climate extremes are destroying crops. Regenerative agriculture, permaculture, and reduced tillage agriculture keep more carbon in the soil. Many traditional farming practices are already regenerative; traditional farmers know their seeds.
Please join and build this movement for peace on Earth and peace with the Earth!
Amani na utunzaji wa tabia ya inchi
Sign the petition for Peace and climate justice
in English, https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/pcjafrica-2/
Signez la pétition pour la paix et la justice climatique
2026 Youth Summit
Young peace and climate justice activists are making preparations for the coming 2026 Pan African Youth Summit. Some will travel by bus, three days in one direction, from Malawi, Congo, Morocco, and Namibia, if the conference can cover the transportation costs for these dedicated individuals. Please help them get there and support the summit. Donations may be made through NAZZCA, with a note that it’s For Africa!
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