YUSSUF: A defining moment for the Global South: Climate leadership beyond U.S. withdrawal

Yussuf Hussein, Regional Director, Africa VCF-V20 Secretariats./HANDOUT

The move by America to withdraw and disengage from the international climate space represents a defining moment for the Global South. While such a move would undoubtedly weaken multilateral climate cooperation, it does not mark the end of global climate action.

Instead, it exposes long-standing structural weaknesses in the system and accelerates an inevitable transition toward a more decentralised, coalition-driven climate order.

For the Global South and Africa in particular, this moment is both a risk and an opportunity. The risk lies in increased uncertainty and fragmentation.

The opportunity is in reclaiming agency and shaping a climate finance architecture that is predictable, equitable, and aligned with development priorities. That a retreat by America from global climate engagement would have immediate and visible consequences is not in question. The big question is to what extent?

First, it would introduce significant financing uncertainty. Although the US is not the largest contributor to global climate finance, its role as a political and market signal is substantial. Withdrawal would likely slow project approvals, weaken co-financing dynamics, and heighten risk perceptions distinctly for adaptation, resilience, and loss and damage initiatives, which already struggle to attract sufficient capital.

Second, it would further shift climate governance away from universal consensus toward plurilateral and regional coalitions. This evolution is already underway, and America's disengagement would only accelerate it. In such a system, influence will depend less on moral authority and more on organisation, coordination, and technical preparedness.

Third, it would dilute pressure around historical responsibility and equity, pushing the system toward voluntary commitments and market-based approaches that often fail to reflect the fiscal realities of developing and climate-vulnerable economies.

Why this matters for Africa

For Africa, the stakes are particularly high. The continent faces disproportionate climate impacts while grappling with debt stress, limited fiscal space, and pressing development needs. Climate shocks are no longer isolated environmental events; they are macroeconomic shocks that undermine growth, destabilise budgets, and reverse development gains.

Yet Africa is also uniquely positioned to lead in this moment. The continent holds significant renewable energy potential, critical minerals, natural capital, and a growing labour force. Climate action, if properly financed, can underpin industrialisation, energy access, and long-term competitiveness.

A less predictable global climate system reinforces a central lesson for Africa: reliance on discretionary, politically contingent finance is no longer viable. Coalitions of climate-vulnerable and developing countries have already begun to reshape global debates by reframing climate change as a development and financial stability issue, not solely an environmental one. Platforms such as the Climate Vulnerable Forum and the V20 Group of Finance Ministers have demonstrated how coordinated political and financial leadership can elevate the priorities of vulnerable economies.

Their experience offers a valuable lesson for the broader Global South: collective action, grounded in economic realities, can generate influence even in the absence of major power leadership.

First and foremost, the focus must shift from moral appeals to systemic reform. While equity and historical responsibility remain essential principles, the Global South must increasingly focus on systemic solutions—rules-based finance, automatic mechanisms, and institutional reforms that function regardless of political cycles in individual countries.

Second is the urgent need to prioritise predictable, rules-based climate finance. This includes advancing international solidarity levies, expanding and rechanneling of the special drawing rights, scaling climate-aligned debt instruments, and embedding climate considerations into sovereign risk and debt sustainability frameworks.

Third, it is necessary to reform the Multilateral Development Banks to deliver at scale.

MDB’s reform must become the primary delivery vehicle for climate finance. The Global South should collectively push for the faster implementation of balance-sheet reforms, climate-resilient debt analyses, and financing that supports nationally defined development and resilience priorities.

Anchoring climate action in economic transformation is the other fundamental step. For Africa, especially, climate action must be inseparable from development. Energy access, green industrialisation, resilient infrastructure, and job creation should be at the centre of climate strategies. This framing strengthens the case for investment even in a more fragmented geopolitical landscape.

Lastly, there must be deliberate efforts to deepen South–South and other reform-oriented partnerships. As global leadership becomes more diffuse, coalitions of delivery will matter more than universal agreement. Africa and the wider Global South should strengthen cooperation among themselves and with willing partners to advance practical, implementable solutions.

America’s withdrawal from the climate space would undoubtedly complicate global cooperation. But for the Global South, and Africa in particular, the deeper challenge is not the absence of one actor. It is the persistence of a system that remains unpredictable, discretionary, and misaligned with the realities of development.

This moment calls for a strategic pivot: from dependence to agency, from pledges to systems, and from vulnerability to leadership. If seized effectively, it can mark the beginning of a more resilient and development-anchored global climate architecture—shaped not at the margins, but from the priorities of those most affected.

The writer is the Regional Director, Africa VCF-V20 Secretariats