President Ismail Omar Guelleh
Source: Africa Publicity
The President of Djibouti, Ismail Omar Guelleh, has called on African nations to effectively adapt in order to be able to deal with the negative consequences of climate change.
He made the call in his speech delivered on Monday, September 8, 2025 on the opening day of the two-day 2nd Africa Climate Summit (ACS-2), in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.
Now in its second edition, the Africa Climate Summit continues to pursue its original objective: providing the continent with an opportunity to raise international awareness about the massive damage it endures due to the prolonged consequences of global warming.
The summit aims to offer Africa an integrated advocacy platform to promote the principle of financial compensation for environmental degradation—largely caused by greenhouse gas emissions from countries outside the continent.
In his address at the event, President Guelleh stressed that Africa must first focus on reducing the impact of climate change through better adaptation measures in its member states.
“Immediately, the urgency calls for an adaptation strategy in place. This is, among other, through the restoration of degraded ecosystems, but also through investments in the social development of vulnerable communities,” said the Head of State.
President Guelleh identified the beginning of a genuine energy transition as another essential step in minimizing climate-related challenges in Africa.
In this spirit, he called for the mobilization of funding to support energy transition efforts through innovative initiatives.
“In order to face the hydro of global warming, we need to put in place a perennial financing mechanism,” the President of the Republic emphasized.
“It is this mechanism, without a doubt, that will be the barometer of the credibility of the International Community and, in the long run, the effectiveness of policies to combat climate change,” he highlighted.
“In order to exploit the many decartered energy potentials of our continent, we must bring renewable energy funding to at least 20% by 2030,” said President Guelleh, also noting how much the country already possesses “expertise” in this specific area.
“For the past two years, the “”Sovereign Carbon Agency”” has been collecting carbon contributions based on the principle of “”polluter-payer”” and turning them into adaptation projects for communities affected by global warming,” thus rejoiced the President of the Republic.
However, President Guelleh acknowledged that African companies continue to face significant challenges in accessing the diverse range of financial resources pledged under international solidarity frameworks.
This is why he described the summit as:
“an opportunity for Africa to remind our international partners of their commitment to financing the ecological transition as a whole… such as debt relief in exchange for green investment, loss and damage compensation funds but also the climate green fund.”
