The African Union and the COP30 Special Envoy for Africa and IOM issued this joint statement on climate mobility in Africa at COP30.
Africa stands at a pivotal moment in the global climate agenda and faces a critical challenge. While contributing the least to global greenhouse gas emissions, it bears a disproportionate burden of climate impacts – droughts, floods, desertification, and rising sea levels that are already displacing communities, destroying livelihoods, and straining public infrastructure.
Recognising the increasing frequency and severity of climate-induced disasters, the Africa climate change policy position is unequivocal that adaptation and resilience are indispensable. These disasters result in unprecedented devastation to livelihoods, infrastructure, and development gains, exacerbating existing vulnerabilities, and hindering sustainable growth across the continent.
With abundant natural resources, a young and dynamic workforce, and vast renewable energy potential, the continent is uniquely positioned to lead the global green transition. Its solar, wind, and hydro resources can power not only its own development but also contribute to global decarbonization efforts. With over 60% of its population under the age of 25, Africa’s demographic dividend offers a powerful engine for innovation, entrepreneurship, and inclusive growth.
The Scale of the Challenge
The numbers tell a stark story. Disasters triggered almost 8.4 million new internal displacements in Africa and the Middle East in 2024. The IPCC projects that with a 2,5°C temperature increase by 2050, internal migration in sub-Saharan Africa alone could reach between 56-million and 86-million people. Without drastic action, up to 216-million internal climate migrants could be displaced globally by 2050.
The impacts fall hardest on those least prepared – migrants, people displaced within and across borders, pastoralists, and populations unable or unwilling to move. Their ability to recover depends on their resilience, adaptive capacities, and the opportunities they are provided.
Africa’s Response
The African Union has responded through key frameworks including Agenda 2063, the African Union Climate Change and Resilient Development Strategy, and ongoing work on an AU Strategy and Declaration on Migration and Climate Change, informed by the Kampala Ministerial Declaration on Migration, Environment and Climate Change. These frameworks recognize that human mobility is central to Africa’s climate, security, and development landscape.
At the heart of Africa’s response is the need to scale up climate adaptation and ensure that human mobility is anchored within national policies. This means allowing populations to move safely and regularly toward adaptation opportunities – not only as a last resort. Of the 22 African countries that have submitted National Adaptation Plans, 18 include references to human mobility, demonstrating growing recognition of this critical link.
Reframing Mobility as Adaptation
Human mobility is too often seen only as a crisis response. Yet when movement is voluntary, safe, and orderly, it can be a powerful form of adaptation. Approximately 80% of migrants from Africa remain in the region, providing the continent with great opportunities for regional integration and labour mobility. Migration can serve as a vital enabler of sustainable development, facilitating the transfer of skills, diversifying livelihoods, and strengthening regional economies.
When governed effectively, migration fosters household and community resilience, facilitates access to income and services, and supports the regional exchange of knowledge and labour. As natural resource-based livelihoods become more uncertain, voluntary migration increasingly becomes an option that households and communities consider.
Support for policies that enable safe, orderly, and rights-based mobility – such as the African Union’s Protocol on Free Movement of Persons and the Migration Policy Framework for Africa – can strengthen people’s resilience and help African governments realise their national development potential.
The Just Transition Imperative
Human mobility is also critical to ensuring just transitions. Labour migration enables workers to diversify their income sources, and remittances improve financial stability and help families adapt. As African economies shift toward low-carbon and climate-resilient pathways, it is essential that vulnerable groups – including women, migrants, displaced persons, and mobile workers – are included in workforce transitions and benefit from safe migration pathways, social protection, and decent work.
This requires integrating mobility considerations into national just transition frameworks, promoting safe and rights-based migration pathways, and supporting skills development and labour mobility as part of green economy transitions.
Call to Action: Three Priority Areas for COP30
Ahead of COP30, we call for strengthened implementation across three critical areas:
Integrating Human Mobility into Climate Finance
Climate finance mechanisms must explicitly address human mobility. The Baku to Belém Roadmap should double adaptation finance for vulnerable groups, recognizing that as temperatures continue to rise, adaptation needs will accelerate correspondingly. African countries and communities must have access to the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage for mobility solutions.
Adaptation and loss and damage finance should support human mobility both prospectively and retrospectively through earmarked funding. The participation of migrants, displaced persons, and refugees in the work of the Fund’s Board must be encouraged. Technical assistance from the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage is essential to strengthen capacities in addressing displacement, migration, and planned relocation.
1 – Integrating Human Mobility into Climate Finance
Climate finance mechanisms must explicitly address human mobility. The Baku to Belém Roadmap should double adaptation finance for vulnerable groups, recognizing that as temperatures continue to rise, adaptation needs will accelerate correspondingly. African countries and communities must have access to the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage for mobility solutions.
Adaptation and loss and damage finance should support human mobility both prospectively and retrospectively through earmarked funding. The participation of migrants, displaced persons, and refugees in the work of the Fund’s Board must be encouraged. Technical assistance from the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage is essential to strengthen capacities in addressing displacement, migration, and planned relocation.
2 – Accelerating Adaptation
Human mobility considerations must be mainstreamed within the National Adaptation Plan process, prioritising risk reduction and early warning measures that enhance climate-resilient development and offer people the choice to stay with dignity and safely.
More finance must flow to Africa to facilitate climate mobility as adaptation, especially as countries struggle under debt burdens and high capital costs. As experts finalize indicators under the Global Goal on Adaptation at COP30, including human mobility considerations and references to migrants and displaced people can enhance positive migration outcomes for communities in both sending and receiving areas.
3 – Strengthening Solidarity on Just Transitions
A just transition requires ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions, investment in decent work for both male and female migrant workers, and alignment of climate action with peacebuilding and migration governance. As the Just Transition Work Programme concludes, it must ensure the inclusion of labour migration, migrant workers’ rights across all sectors and skill levels, skills development, and the positive contributions of migrants and diaspora.
A Vision for the Future
These priorities align strongly with the COP30 Presidency’s Belém Action Agenda, which emphasises inclusive, equity-driven transitions, scaled-up adaptation efforts, and support for vulnerable groups.
Africa is leading with clarity of vision and purpose. Its communities, governments, and youth are already crafting solutions that blend local knowledge with regional cooperation and global collaboration.
As climate mobility becomes an increasingly pressing reality, COP30 presents both a critical opportunity and a responsibility – to match Africa’s leadership with concrete commitment and action.
The time to act is now.