Global climate efforts have evolved from promises to action, focusing more on how these actions create real change, especially in Africa.
In an interview with allAfrica, Samed Agirbas, COP31 Climate High-Level Champion, discussed how the renewed Global Climate Action Agenda seeks to connect agreements at the highest level with practical solutions on the ground. In the agenda, six thematic axes – energy, forests, food, cities, finance, and social – are prioritised for accelerating Paris Agreement implementation.
He spoke about expanding access to renewable energy, improving food systems, encouraging youth-led innovation, and supporting zero-waste initiatives.
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Argibas also told us how governments, businesses, and communities can speed up action before COP31. He discussed the importance of locally driven initiatives in building a more resilient and sustainable future.
In your capacity as a COP31 Climate High-Level Champion, how do you see the renewed Global Climate Action Agenda translating into concrete action for African cities and communities?
At UN climate conferences, countries have made commitments designed to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius and help communities adapt to rising extreme weather events. These commitments include, for instance, tripling renewable energy, halting forest loss, or protecting coastal communities from flooding. The Global Climate Action Agenda is how those commitments move from the negotiating room into people’s lives. It connects these political agreements to the governments, businesses, cities, investors, and communities doing the work. Currently, the Action Agenda coordinates nearly 500 active climate initiatives – covering clean energy, sustainable food systems, forest protection, urban resilience, water security, and more – and works to scale them so that they reach more people.
Of those initiatives, 58 engage directly with Africa and 40% involve local communities. They focus on priority areas for the continent: food security and sustainable land use, energy access and urban infrastructure, and human and social development.
In Kenya, for example, one Action Agenda initiative is expanding electricity access by scaling mini-grids and off-grid solar systems. In Kisumu, the goal is a city running entirely on renewable energy by 2050. The Kenya Cold Chain Accelerator is helping farmers store and transport their produce using clean energy, keeping food fresh, reducing waste, and boosting incomes in the process. And the African Cities Water Adaptation Platform (ACWA) is a pan-African initiative helping cities plan, finance, and implement climate-resilient water solutions, to leverage at least US$5 billion across 100 African cities by 2032.
Since this is your first visit to the continent in your role as COP31 Climate High Level Champion, what role do you believe African businesses, civil society, and local communities can play in accelerating climate action on the continent?
This is indeed my first visit to the continent since being appointed as COP31 Climate High-Level Champion. That said, I have visited Africa, and Kenya in particular, many times before, and it has been a great source of inspiration to me. I have seen resilience, innovation, and determination from grassroots communities in a rapidly growing private sector.
Through the Action Agenda, African leaders, businesses and communities are already showcasing solutions designed by Africans, for Africans, with global relevance. That gives them real potential to be replicated and scaled across the continent, as well as globally.
Some of these solutions, or initiatives as we call them under the Action Agenda, are connected to dedicated acceleration plans, which move the work faster and help it to reach more people. Each plan looks at the five levers that typically determine whether a solution works or not – policy and regulation, finance, market supply and demand, technology, and technical capacity. Having a good solution is not enough. Plenty of good solutions exist and go nowhere because the right financing never arrives, or the policy environment works against them, or the people implementing them never get the support they need to scale. These plans are built around that reality, and they are designed to pull the right levers in the right combination to get solutions unstuck.
For example, there is a plan spearheaded by RestoreAfrica, which is working to support 20 million smallholder and pastoralist households to restore degraded land. It is also working to mobilise $5 billion in finance and reform policies in more than 20 countries.
On food systems, the Access to Finance for Agrifood Systems Transformation plan is building real connections between global financial institutions and local delivery channels, so that climate finance actually reaches the farmers and food producers who need it. It puts farmers and food value chain actors as equal partners in the design and monitoring of that finance.
And then there’s the No Organic Waste acceleration plan, which has created composting hubs to reduce methane emissions, and foodbank networks to recover 20 million tons of surplus food annually, all while feeding 50 million people and integrating 1 million waste workers into a circular economy.
The concept of zero waste is gaining increasing attention around the world. To achieve zero-waste systems while balancing economic and infrastructure challenges, what practical steps can African cities take?
Zero waste contributes to sustainable economic and infrastructure development. Zero Waste is not about adding new burdens on cities; rather, it is about making existing systems work better. Zero waste is also not a new concept; in many ways, it is as old as human history. Its most practical applications are often the simplest and most effective.
First, cities can focus not only on actively promoting but also on taking concrete steps to reduce waste at source. This is achievable by improving how materials are sourced, designed, used and recovered. This means separating waste, strengthening collection systems, and ensuring that organic waste, recyclables and residual waste are handled differently.
Second, there is a strong opportunity to invest in solutions that are already proven and scalable, such as composting, food recovery, and circular business models that keep materials in use for longer. These are often lower-cost interventions that can deliver quick results.
Third, zero waste needs to be embedded into how cities plan and grow, from how infrastructure is designed to how markets and supply chains function.
It is also important to recognise that food waste looks very different across regions. In many parts of the Global South, the challenge is losses in the value chain, due to gaps in storage, transportation and cold chain infrastructure. Imagine what a farmer in Africa could do with the ability to store harvested crops properly, along with access to affordable, water- and air-tight storage.
Ultimately, zero waste works when it becomes part of daily life, when it is woven into the fabric of how cities grow and develop sustainably, and when it is visible in how people consume, how resources are managed, and how systems are designed to prevent waste rather than respond to it.
In Africa, food insecurity and food loss remain pressing issues. How can climate action frameworks be used to address these interconnected problems more effectively?
Approximately one billion tonnes of food are wasted worldwide every year, while hundreds of millions of people still face hunger. This is a climate crisis and a development crisis at the same time. Food waste is one of the most concrete areas where we can make progress because it occurs throughout the entire process, from farm to table. If we reduced global food waste by just 20%, we would have the power to completely eradicate hunger on Earth. This is precisely why Zero Waste is not simply about managing waste better. It is about fundamentally changing the way we produce and consume, preventing waste before it occurs, increasing efficiency at every stage, and returning every resource back into the economy. COP31 is the first COP to say that clearly, formally, as a political priority. The global importance of this issue is already recognised through a UN General Assembly resolution establishing March 30 as the International Day of Zero Waste, supported by an Advisory Board that has helped guide and scale action in this space.
The Action Agenda addresses the interconnected problems of food security and food waste with several initiatives. For example, the Global EverGreening Alliance is accelerating land restoration and regenerative agriculture, supporting 20 million smallholder and pastoralist households to restore degraded land, mobilising $5 billion in finance, and reforming policies in 20+ countries to sustain productive, climate-resilient landscapes by 2030.
And then there’s a plan to advance food security through food recovery and waste reduction, hosted by the Global FoodBanking Network alongside more than 60 locally-led food banking organisations across 50 countries, including here in Kenya. It aims to feed more than 50 million people annually, reduce up to 1.3 billion tonnes of food loss and waste, and cut 4.65 gigatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
COP31 is focused on closing the gap between climate commitments on paper and results on the ground. Food waste is one of the most actionable places to close that gap. We have the plans, we have the partners, and we have an incoming COP Presidency that has made this a named priority.
Youth voices have increased in the climate movement; however, many feel their energy is welcomed at negotiations, but their demands are not taken into consideration. What can the Global Climate Action Agenda do to support and scale up youth-led climate solutions in Africa?
Some of these youth-led climate solutions are already a part of the Action Agenda. One example is the Young Emerging Farmers Initiative, a Zambian organisation empowering indigenous youth between 15 and 35 to transform food systems through climate-smart agriculture and agroecology. With a network of over 500,000 young people, YEFI is driving green jobs, policy advocacy, and resilience for inclusive food systems. Richard Kachungu, who leads it, has trained over 50,000 young farmers in sustainable land management since 2014, increasing their incomes by an average of 40% and restoring more than 2,000 hectares of degraded land.
Another part of the Champion’s role is to also platform locally-led and youth-led work to give it international visibility in the COP process. For example, the Champions ran a COP Impact Makers campaign, launched by Nigar Arpadarai, where we teamed up with a number of young leaders shaping climate action today. I think of Michael Kakande in Uganda, who built a pan-African climate network to ensure that African priorities are reflected in the decisions made at COP. His team also ran 846 climate cafes across 38 countries to help young people have a safe space to talk about the climate crisis and its impact on their lives. Or Kadiatu Sheriff in Liberia, who trained over 630 women and youth in waste management and recycling in a city with almost no formal services. And Maryam Bello, who has facilitated healthcare for 100,000 people using telemedicine and mobile health hubs across 10 communities that were impacted by climate disasters.
My role as Champion is to be a bridge between these types of voluntary climate initiatives and the more formal negotiations that take place at COP. That’s why I’m here in Nairobi at the Africa Urban Forum. I am meeting with local leaders, women and young people, including in informal settlements. Not to speak for them – they can speak for themselves – but to carry what they tell me into every conversation I have with diplomats, business leaders, etc. That is what the Champion’s role can do.
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As African delegates and stakeholders prepare for COP31, what is your message to them?
Climate solutions are not one-size-fits-all. What works in one region may not work in another. The Action Agenda exists to amplify what is already working, and to connect it to the finance and political support needed to scale.
Africa is one of the most important sources of climate solutions on the planet, in land restoration, in the circular economy, and in community-led adaptation. One of the roles of the Champion is to ensure continuity between the COP processes. So it’s a particular priority for me to make sure we’re bringing those solutions into the Action Agenda, as we plan ahead, not just for COP31 in Türkiye, but also for COP32 in Ethiopia.
We have 58 initiatives already engaged within the continent, covering energy, biodiversity, agriculture, cities, and human development, and we need to have the biggest and best solutions being scaled not just here across the continent but globally. The Action Agenda is only as strong as the actors who shape it.
There are other African solutions that reflect exactly the kind of work the Action Agenda was designed to amplify, and my call is for them to join us.
For example, in finance, the Africa Climate Risk Insurance Framework for Adaptation (ACRIFA) is a USD $1 billion initiative designed to scale up climate insurance for over 40 million farmers and small businesses. Meanwhile, the Africa Climate Innovation Compact and the African Climate Facility are committing to mobilize $50 billion annually in catalytic finance — with a goal of 1,000 African-led climate solutions by 2030.
On circular economy: The Africa Circular Economy Facility and the African Circular Economy Alliance are furthering inclusive and green growth strategies in Africa. And on youth: the YouthADAPT Challenge supports and finances youth-led climate solutions.
Finally, on cities – particularly relevant here at the Africa Urban Forum – the Building Climate Resilience with the Urban Poor (BRCUP) programme is improving the living conditions and climate resilience of the urban poor across a twenty-country pilot.
These initiatives are already well underway. What the Action Agenda can offer is connectivity – to each other, to global finance, and to the political process at COP. That is how we scale these solutions faster and impact more people around the world. That is what I am here to build.
