Trailblazers in a Warming World? The Agency of African Actors in Climate, Peace, and Security

A growing body of evidence indicates how climate change can, combined with other factors, increase the risk of violent conflict. Such claims have particularly been made in African contexts. This article studies the agency exerted by African actors in shaping international agendas on climate, peace, and security in the cases of (1) the UN Security Council, (2) The African Union and (3) COP27. The analysis shows how this engagement has included diplomacy, discursive innovation, epistemic engagement, and policy coordination. We argue that the continent's growing geopolitical centrality is enabling African actors to exert a nonaligned foreign policy on their own terms.