KEY POINTS
- Rwanda has cut 1.5 million tonnes of carbon emissions, hitting 36% of its 4.4 million-tonne 2030 target.
- Renewable energy now makes up 51% of Rwanda’s national energy mix, with forest cover at 30.4%.
- A $6.2 billion financing gap remains against Rwanda’s revised $12 billion climate action investment target.
Rwanda has made real progress on its climate targets. The harder part is still ahead.
The Rwanda Environment Management Authority has confirmed that the country has cut 1.5 million tonnes of carbon emissions, reaching 36 percent of the 4.4 million-tonne reduction target set under its national climate action plan by 2030. The figures come from Rwanda’s First Biennial Transparency Report, a formal submission under the Paris Agreement that tracks mitigation progress, adaptation gains and climate finance flows.
Pearl Nkusi, Climate Actions Transparency Specialist at REMA, said the cuts came mainly from renewable energy deployment, energy efficiency programs, climate-smart agriculture and improved waste management. Renewable energy now accounts for 51 percent of the national energy mix. Forest cover has reached 30.4 percent.
The report also shows that climate finance mobilization has moved faster than expected. Between 2020 and 2025, at least $4.7 billion of the required $5.1 billion financing target was raised through the Rwanda Green Fund, international climate finance and other sources, achieving 93.3 percent of the target.
Progress in agriculture and land use
Agriculture remains Rwanda’s largest emissions source, accounting for 39 percent of total emissions. Energy follows at 18 percent, waste at 13 percent and industry at 2 percent. Despite those numbers, the agriculture sector has logged meaningful gains.
Anti-erosion measures expanded from 68 percent to 92 percent coverage between 2018 and 2023. Irrigation coverage doubled from 5 percent to 10 percent, with irrigated land now reaching 71,500 hectares. Crop and livestock insurance coverage also improved, strengthening farmer resilience against climate shocks.
The country remains vulnerable. Between 2014 and 2023, climate-related disasters caused 1,595 deaths, injured 2,368 people, damaged more than 62,000 houses and destroyed 38,002 hectares of farmland.
The financing gap that threatens the next phase
The harder problem is money. Rwanda’s original climate action plan identified an investment need of $11 billion by 2030. That figure has since been revised upward to $12 billion through 2035. Against that target, a $6.2 billion financing gap remains, with limited private-sector participation and capacity constraints cited as the main obstacles.
Nkusi said the gap is most acute in the post-2025 period. Planned interventions include expanding renewable energy, scaling up cleaner transport, promoting climate-smart agriculture, reducing industrial emissions and establishing urban forests across 2,100 hectares. Rwanda has also revised its emissions reduction ambition upward, now targeting a 53 percent cut, equivalent to 14.86 million tonnes, by 2035.
