POLICY BRIEFING

From military spending to climate finance: what Annex II countries could deliver for Africa

A new policy briefing by Tipping Point North South released ahead of COP31 in Turkey shows that rich developed countries are actively prioritising military spending over climate finance for the most climate vulnerable nations, many of which are in sub-Saharan Africa. 

The “massive gap” in climate finance for African nations was addressed at a meeting of African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change in February this year. It expressed deep concern that less than 3% of global climate finance reaches sub-Saharan Africa annually, with much of this funding arrives as loans rather than grants, worsening the continent’s debt burden.

Annex II countries under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are subset of industrialized nations belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and are charged with a legal obligation to provide climate finance, reflecting their historic responsibility for climate change. But inside climate finance negotiations, it is Annex II countries which consistently plead poverty and drive down the climate finance ambition year after year, as evidenced at COP29 in Baku.

Yet in 2025 Annex II countries spent $1.5 trillion on the military (more than half of the global total $2.8 trillion). This was a 28% increase of $336 billion (at constant 2024 prices and exchange rates) on 2015, the year of the Paris Agreement and an average annual increase of $34 billion.

From military spending to climate finance: what Annex II countries could deliver for Africa argues that rapid year on year increases in the military spending of Annex II rich countries means there is money available to meet their historic climate obligations despite their claims to the contrary.

For example, redirecting just 5% of Annex II annual military spending—about US$76 billion a year—would create a substantial, predictable flow of public climate finance for Africa: enough to cover the estimated US$50 billion annual cost of electrifying households in 40 Sub-Saharan African countries by 2030, with US$26 billion left for other priorities, or to meet about 30% of Africa’s US$250 billion annual external climate-finance need.

The briefing says that the choice between allocating ever more hundreds of billions for fossil fuel-addicted war machines or public climate finance for climate vulnerable nations of sub-Saharan Africa is a question of political priority, not scarcity. As COP31 in Turkey approaches and the Africa COP32 in Addis Ababa scheduled for 2027, it argues that the time is fast coming when ever rising global military expenditure will be regarded as a yet one more significant source to tap if rich nations are to pay up and meet the urgent climate needs of a continent that has zero responsibility for the climate emergency yet facing the ever-growing consequences. Continue reading →