African leaders to push for finance at climate summit

African leaders and global policymakers gathered on Tuesday in Kenya for a climate summit aimed at showcasing the continent as a destination for investment in efforts to combat global warming. 

Kenyan President William Ruto is hosting counterparts from countries including Mozambique, Tanzania and Ghana, and United Nations head Antonio Guterres, US climate envoy John Kerry, and COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber are in attendance. During the summit, the United Arab Emirates announced 4.5 billion USD in clean energy investments in Africa.

Sultan Al Jaber, COP28 President said  "Working together, we will deploy, and by working together we will deploy 4.5 billion dollars that will catalyse at least an additional 12.5 billion dollars from multilateral, public and private sources. It is our ambition that this will launch a new transformative partnership to jumpstart a pipeline of bankable clean energy projects in this very important continent." 

The summit will offer proposals to reform global financial structures that have resulted in only a tiny fraction of investments in climate solutions being directed toward Africa.