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The Economic Community of West African States is pushing for a regional carbon market to help bridge the $294 billion climate finance gap facing West Africa, as climate change threatens to displace about 32 million people across the region.
ECOWAS Commissioner for Economic Affairs and Agriculture Dr. Kalilou Sylla made the disclosure at a regional workshop in Abuja to validate the framework for a West African carbon market platform.
Sylla, represented by ECOWAS Director for Environment and Natural Resources Christophe Deguénon, said temperatures across West Africa are projected to rise by between 1.5 and 3 degrees Celsius by 2050.
What ECOWAS is saying
Sylla said the carbon market platform is designed to address the region’s limited participation in international carbon markets, despite its enormous potential to generate high-quality environmental and social carbon credits from forests, agricultural land, mangroves and degraded landscapes.
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- “According to World Bank estimates, nearly 32 million West African people could be forced into internal displacement as a result of climate impacts, making collective regional action imperative,” he said.
- “West Africa has the assets. It has over 350 million hectares of agricultural land, vast forests and mangroves, and huge potential to restore degraded landscapes. We can generate high-integrity carbon credits. Yet we remain under-represented in international carbon markets due to gaps in regulation, technical capacity, monitoring, and certification,” he said.
- “The ECOWAS Regional Strategy for Access to and Mobilisation of Climate Finance adopted in 2022 estimated the region’s climate financing needs at 294 billion dollars,” he added.
He added that the financing gap had widened following the submission of NDCs 3.0, as member states raised their climate ambitions and the need for large-scale climate finance grew.
- “The regional strategy also identified the need to establish a regional framework for the operationalisation of Article 6 to help bridge the financing gap,” he said.
Sylla said ECOWAS launched a regional process in 2024, aligned with ECOWAS Vision 2050 and the African Union’s Agenda 2063, to develop a harmonised framework for the platform.
Nigeria’s Minister of Environment, Balarabe Lawal, expressed concern that West Africa bears a disproportionate share of the consequences of climate change despite minimal responsibility for global emissions.
- “Climate change continues to pose significant threats to our economies, ecosystems, food security, livelihoods and the well-being of our people. These shared challenges demand collective solutions,” Lawal said in a statement read by a director from his ministry.
Get up to speed
The ECOWAS initiative comes as Nigeria and the global carbon market continue to gain momentum.
- In January, President Bola Tinubu approved the implementation and operationalisation of Nigeria’s carbon market framework, a policy the Federal Government expects could generate at least $3 billion annually by 2030.
- The Director-General of the National Council on Climate Change, Tenioye Majekodunmi said the framework would position Nigeria to participate more actively in carbon trading and facilitate emissions allowance transactions across sectors.
- Also, in May, the World Bank reported that global revenues from carbon pricing mechanisms exceeded $107 billion in 2025, according to its 2026 State and Trends of Carbon Pricing report.
What you should know
The ECOWAS warning comes against the backdrop of earlier regional investments in infrastructure and environmental projects.
In April, the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) approved $266.7 million for strategic projects across West Africa, including $100 million for the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway in Nigeria.
The bank also approved $50 million for waste management facilities in Lagos, aimed at expanding recycling capacity, creating jobs, and reducing environmental and public health risks.
