What Libya Must Do Now: Five Steps From Climate Plans to Real Change

Libya now has climate plans. What it does not yet have is the law, the money and the political follow-through to make them real.

The good news: none of the five steps below requires Libya to first solve its wider political divisions. And every one of them would make those divisions less dangerous.

Step 1: Finish joining the Paris Agreement

You will often hear that Libya's ratification of the Paris Agreement is "waiting for parliament". It isn't.

Joining a treaty takes four steps. Libya has already done two:

The four steps to joining the Paris Agreement — and where Libya stands

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Parliament voted on 31 August 2021 — three weeks before it withdrew its confidence from the unity government. That is a strong argument that its approval still stands. What is missing is an executive act: the government signs the formal document and deposits it at the UN in New York. Membership then begins automatically 30 days later.

It sounds like paperwork. It is much more. Membership would give Libya a vote in Paris Agreement decisions, access to its carbon markets, and — crucially — it would remove the biggest question mark funders have about Libya's commitment.

Parliament voted in 2021. One official document in New York is all that stands between Libya and full membership.

Step 2: Write climate action into law

Right now, Libya's climate committee exists only by government decree. A new government could dissolve it tomorrow. Libya's environment law dates from 2003 and does not even mention adapting to climate change; its water law dates from 1982.

A national climate law should:

• give the climate committee a permanent legal basis and its own budget;
• require the oil company, the electricity company and ministries to share their data on emissions and disasters;
• check every new school, hospital and road for climate risks before it is built — so no new hospital goes up in a flood path;
• guarantee towns a share of funding for drains and flood defences;
• make polluters pay for unnecessary gas flaring, unlicensed pumping of groundwater and illegal forest clearing;
• guarantee citizens access to climate information and a say in decisions.

Step 3: Find the money — starting at home

Libya's plans ask for about $23 billion in international support over ten years. That is roughly ten times the foreign aid the country currently receives.

No donor will commit that kind of money unless Libya shows it is paying its share. And this is where one number changes the whole conversation.

The International Monetary Fund estimates that Libya spent about $17 billion in 2024 keeping fuel and electricity cheap. Petrol and diesel have cost 0.15 dinars a litre since the 1970s — among the lowest prices on Earth. Up to 30% of imported fuel is smuggled out of the country, earning smuggling networks around $3 billion a year.

Now compare: everything Libya has promised to pay for itself under its climate plans comes to about $1 billion a year.

That is about 6% of one year's fuel subsidy bill.

Libya's entire self-funded climate commitment costs about 6% of what it spends each year keeping fuel cheap — much of which ends up with smugglers.

How to reform subsidies without hurting families

Subsidy reform fails when it arrives as a sudden price shock. A fairer path, based on the IMF's analysis:

1. Track the fuel from import to petrol station, to know what Libyans really use.
2. Stop the smuggling at depots and borders.
3. Explain openly what subsidies cost, who really benefits, and where the savings will go.
4. Pay people first. Give every citizen monthly cash support — the IMF suggests roughly $40–93 per person per month over five years — before any price rises.
5. Raise prices gradually, in steps announced in advance.
6. Set prices by formula, protected from political pressure.

Even after paying full compensation, the state would start saving money from the third year, the IMF estimates. Presented honestly — as taking money back from smugglers and giving it to citizens — reform becomes far easier to defend.

Step 4: Sell the wasted gas — carefully

Under the Paris Agreement, a country that cuts its emissions beyond its own target can sell those extra cuts to another country. Libya's pledge says it wants to do this — but only Paris members can take part. One more reason to finish Step 1.

The obvious place to start is gas flaring. Libya was the world's sixth-largest gas flarer in 2025. Capturing that gas would avoid about 90 million tonnes of emissions over ten years.

As a rough illustration only: if around 60 million tonnes of those cuts were sold at $10–20 per tonne, they would be worth $0.6–1.2 billion — in the same range as the foreign money the project needs.

But Libya should set four rules from day one: sell only cuts that would not happen anyway; measure them on site and have them independently checked; don't sell the cheapest cuts too early; and share the income with the communities living beside the oil fields — including oasis towns such as those of Al-Wahat.

Step 5: A fair deal for workers and the south

Turning the sun into jobs

Libya's other great natural resource is sunlight: its desert receives some of the strongest on Earth. Yet today, renewables supply no more than 1% of its energy.

A just transition means making sure the move away from fossil fuels does not leave anyone behind. Libya already plans a Green Skills Programme to retrain workers. To work, it should:

1. Start inside the energy sector. Capturing wasted gas, finding leaks and modernising power stations are new jobs for today's oil and power technicians.
2. Train people where they live. Open solar and grid-maintenance schools in the oil-producing regions, linked to the first large solar plants.
3. Write local hiring into every contract.
4. Open the door to women and young people with paid apprenticeships and scholarships.
5. Protect workers during the change, with income support and pensions that follow them.

Don't forget the south

The regions neglected for decades — the Fezzan, Kufra, Murzuq and the oasis communities — face the harshest climate and the deepest hardship. Libya's own pledge says that in the Fezzan, "fragile water systems, limited infrastructure, and economic marginalization compound the pressures of extreme heat and recurrent droughts".

Small solar systems, community water projects and support for farmers there would do more than protect against climate change. They would strengthen stability and give young people a reason to stay.

The bottom line

The plans exist. What remains is political courage: depositing a ratification parliament approved five years ago, passing a law that outlasts any one government, reforming subsidies that enrich smugglers, and building an emergency system in which a forecast becomes an evacuation.

Protecting Libyans from a changing climate is not something to do once politics allows. It is part of what it means for Libya to govern itself.

Sources:

1. ^

   United Nations, Paris Agreement (2015), Articles 20 and 21.

2. ^

   State of Libya, National Adaptation Plan (2025).

3. ^

   International Monetary Fund, Energy Subsidy Reform in Libya, Selected Issues Paper (2025).

4. ^

   World Bank, Global Gas Flaring Tracker (2026).

5. ^

   State of Libya, Initial National Communication on Climate Change (2025).

6. ^

   State of Libya, First Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement (2026).