Climate-damaging industries drain public funds in Africa and other continent – ActionAid

By Deborah Asantwaah SARFO

ActionAid’s report on the corporate capture of public finance has revealed that companies (fossil fuel and industrial agriculture sectors) whose activities cause climate crisis are draining the public funds in Africa and the entire Global South as it continues to benefit from government subsidies totalling an average of US$677 billion every year.

As capturing of funds persists, the Global South constituting Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean among other continents are left underdeveloped as the money channelled to the wrong sector “could pay for schooling for all Sub-Saharan African children 3.5 times over”.

Some multinationals benefiting from these subsidies include fossil fuel corporations, Shell and other agricbusiness giant.

“ActionAid’s new report on the corporate capture of public finance finds that climate-destructive sectors are benefiting from subsidies amounting to an average of US$677 billion in the Global South every year, money that could pay for schooling for all sub-Saharan African children 3.5 times over,”.

Findings of the report as stated in the press release indicates that across Global South countries, the fossil fuel sector has received a shocking annual average of US$438.6 billion annually in publicly financed subsidies between 2016 (when the Paris Agreement was signed) and 2023.

Meanwhile, climate finance grants from the Global North to support climate actions and mitigations in climate-hit countries remain insufficient as the Global South renewable energy is receiving 40 times less public finance than the fossil fuel sector.

As AA emphasised the role of climate finance from the developed countries in addressing climate crisis in developing countries, it has urged leaders of the former, to “allocate their limited resources in ways that truly serve their peoples’ needs through climate solutions for food and energy”.

The non-governmental organisation also made some calls to address climate crises – scaling up decentralised renewable energy systems to provide energy access, regulating the banking and finance sectors to end destructive financing and among others.

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