From Statutory Fragment to National Framework: The Urgent Case For A Stand-Alone Climate Change Act For Sierra Leone

By Daniel Sawaneh Esq., B.A. (Hons), LL.B. (Hons), B.L.

Sierra Leone’s environmental legal architecture has significantly  evolved over the decades, yet it remains fundamentally fragmented. To meet the threat of climate change, the nation must move beyond siloed regulation and enact a binding, stand-alone Climate Change Act. The case is not only environmental. It is a matter of national stability, economic sovereignty, and inter-generational justice.

INTRODUCTION

Sierra Leone has long sought to build ‘sentinel institutions’ capable of safeguarding the state. Just as early colonial ordinances shaped modern governance, our environmental laws have grown from simple conservation rules into a layered modern framework. The creation of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change in 2019 was an institutional admission that climate change is no longer a distant abstraction. It threatens our food sovereignty, displaces coastal communities, triggers mudslides, and destroys livelihoods. Despite this obvious improvement, Sierra Leone’s legal framework remains fragmented, treating these crises through an outdated, sector-by-sector lens. Sierra Leone now confronts accelerated deforestation, severe coastal erosion, and unpredictable weather that routinely cripples our agrarian economy.

The global response has caught up with this domestic urgency. The United Nations General Assembly recently adopted Resolution A/80/L.65, which officially operationalizes the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion on the obligations of States to protect the climate system from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions for present and future generations. This landmark text, backed by a strong multilateral consensus, firmly establishes that climate action is no longer a matter of policy preference or political choice. It is a binding legal obligation under international law. As a coastal and forested state with high climate exposure, Sierra Leone must align its domestic law with these rising international standards

This article argues that Sierra Leone must enact a stand-alone climate statute. Such a law would unify the country’s environmental response, codify the ICJ’s clarified obligations into national law, and give our institutions the enforcement powers they currently lack.

SIERRA LEONE’S ENVIRONMENTAL LEGAL EVOLUTION

The Environment Protection Agency (EPA) Act of 2022 represents a transformative leap in Sierra Leone’s environmental legal landscape. It stands on a foundation of earlier laws that first shaped environmental management. Decades earlier, the Wildlife Conservation Act of 1972 and the Forestry Act of 1988 served as the state’s first protective instruments. They demarcated forest reserves and established the first institutional protections against unregulated depletion of the Upper Guinea rainforest.

Yet these early statutes operated in silos. They prioritised commercial timber and narrow species protection over the wider ecosystem. Even after the National Protected Area Authority (NPAA) Act of 2012, our broader climate governance remains structurally incomplete. Today, our environmental architecture rests on a stack of policy documents, from the National Energy Policy (2009) to the Energy Transition and Green Growth Plan (2024). We have the National Electricity Act (2011) and the Customary Land Rights Act (2022), which indirectly protect our natural carbon sinks. However, these instruments operate as sector-level strategies, not binding cross-sectoral mandates.

WHY THE CURRENT FRAMEWORK IS STILL FRAGMENTED

This fragmentation creates institutional silos. The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MoECC) often finds itself developing policy in isolation, while vital sectors like Finance, Agriculture, and Energy operate under older, non-climate-sensitive mandates. For instance, the EPA Act of 2022 is a regulatory tool designed primarily for compliance, focusing on what private actors cannot do. The National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) Act of 2020 addresses disasters after they occur. Neither provides the legal glue necessary to bind every sector of the economy to a single low-carbon objective.

Without a framework law connecting these silos, climate action remains a sectoral interest rather than a national legal obligation. The current framework treats conservation as an isolated ecological task rather than a matter of national security and economic planning. As a result, our institutions remain vigilant but structurally under-equipped for the threats now in front of them.

INTERNATIONAL AND AFRICAN LEGAL MOMENTUM

This deficit is not only a domestic concern. It places Sierra Leone at odds with the evolving global legal order. The Paris Agreement’s progressive ambition cycle and the global net-zero-by-2050 target both demand a modernised legal framework. As a signatory to these international instruments, the state cannot afford a fragmented legal architecture.

Sierra Leone should look to the legislative surge across the African continent. Countries like Kenya, through its Climate Change Act (2016), and Nigeria, with its Climate Change Act (2021), have established high-level National Councils that coordinate climate action from the highest offices of state. Similarly, Uganda’s National Climate Change Act (2021) has domesticated the Paris Agreement, providing a clear legal basis for carbon markets and mandatory climate budgeting. These countries recognise that regional strategies, such as the AU Agenda 2063 and the ECOWAS Regional Climate Strategy, cannot be delivered through soft policy alone. They require hard law to give the state clear enforcement powers.

Australia also offers a useful comparison. In 2011 (as subsequently amended), Australia passed a Climate Change Act to provide stability to a volatile policy landscape. A critical feature of the Australian model is its Climate Change Authority, an independent technical body that provides evidence-based advice to Parliament and is insulated from electoral cycles. Sierra Leone could adapt this structure.

LAYING THE FOUNDATION: WHY A STAND-ALONE ACT FITS SIERRA LEONE

Before prescribing what a Climate Change Act should do, we must establish why Sierra Leone, in particular, needs one. The case rests on three observations drawn from countries that have already taken this step.

First, regional precedent shows that framework legislation works where sectoral regulation has failed. Kenya enacted its Climate Change Act in 2016 after years of treating climate as a forestry matter, a disaster matter, and an energy matter, each handled by a different agency on a different budget cycle. The Act created a National Climate Change Council chaired by the President and bound every ministry to a single five-year action plan. Within a few years, Kenya was placing green bonds on the Nairobi Stock Exchange and channelling carbon finance through a statutory window. Sierra Leone today sits where Kenya sat in 2015. We have a Ministry with the mandate to coordinate, but without the legal authority to compel.

Second, Nigeria and Uganda have shown that a domestic statute is the practical mechanism through which the Paris Agreement becomes enforceable on the ground. Nigeria’s Climate Change Act of 2021 established the National Council on Climate Change, gave it the power to set carbon budgets for public and private entities, and created a protected Climate Change Fund. Uganda’s National Climate Change Act of 2021 went further. It gave every district local government a direct climate planning duty and exposed public officials to personal liability for non-compliance. Sierra Leone has ratified the Paris Agreement, but it has no domestic vehicle yet through which a District Council in Pujehun or Kambia can be held to its share of the national target. A stand-alone Act would supply that vehicle.

Third, the Australian experience underscores a lesson that matters for any small economy exposed to political turbulence. Climate policy needs insulation. Australia’s Climate Change Authority was designed to provide evidence-based advice that outlives any single government, so that a change of administration cannot quietly dismantle decades of work. Sierra Leone, with its tight electoral cycles and shifting ministerial priorities, has every reason to build the same buffer. The EPA, however capable, sits within the executive branch and reports through political channels. A stand-alone Climate Authority, established by statute and reporting directly to Parliament, would give the country a scientific voice that cannot be silenced by any political administration.

These three lessons converge on a single point. Sierra Leone’s climate exposure is not a forestry problem, an energy problem, or a disaster problem. It is a whole-of-government problem, and the countries making measurable progress are the ones that legislated it as such. The EPA Act of 2022 regulates pollution. The NDMA Act of 2020 responds to disasters after they occur. Neither tells the Ministry of Finance how to price climate risk into the national budget. Neither tells the Ministry of Agriculture how to plan for a shifting rainy season. A stand-alone Act would do both.

WHAT A STAND-ALONE CLIMATE CHANGE ACT SHOULD DO

Critics of a stand-alone measure might argue that the EPA Act 2022 and the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change provide sufficient oversight. However, this perspective conflates regulation with governance. Regulation restricts harmful private actions. Framework governance defines what the State must do. A stand-alone Act would mandate ‘Climate Mainstreaming’, requiring every Ministry and District Council to produce a climate risk assessment as a condition for receiving their annual budget.

Specifically, a stand-alone Act would solve current jurisdictional overlaps by addressing three immediate problems:

•       Requiring Financial Alignment: Mandating all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) to align their budgets with national climate goals.

•       Legalising Carbon Markets: Creating clear, statutory authority under Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement, ensuring the state, and not just private interests, profits tangibly from the ecosystem services of our forests and mangroves.

•       Establishing a Climate Fund: Creating a dedicated National Climate Fund subject to parliamentary oversight but protected from departmental reallocation.

To achieve this, the Act need not be a bulky document. A precise legal instrument focusing on the following core elements would do:

•       Codified, Progressive Targets: Ensuring that each successive government must ratchet up climate ambition, thereby preventing policy backsliding.

•       Independent Oversight: The creation of a Sierra Leone Climate Authority to provide annual, evidence-based progress reports to Parliament.

•       Global Alignment: Harmonising domestic law with the AU Agenda 2063, the Baku-Belem Roadmap, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and the 2030 SDGs.

•       Rigorous Accountability: Mandating mechanisms such as an Annual Climate Change Statement to the legislature.

•       Economic and Social Justice Integration: Binding environmental protection to equitable economic growth.

•       Local Empowerment: Granting Ward and Chiefdom committees a direct legal right of action to protect local ‘ecosystem services’ from destruction.

CLIMATE LAW AS NATIONAL STABILITY AND INTERGENERATIONAL JUSTICE

The transition from statutory fragment to national framework is a shift toward securing the rights of the next generation. We draw on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the definitive account of Sierra Leone’s civil war. The TRC identified institutional weakness and the mismanagement of natural resources as primary drivers of past conflict. Today, unchecked climate change is the modern form of that same destabilising threat.

A stand-alone Climate Change Act gives effect to the TRC’s vision of ‘prevention over punishment’. Legislating climate resilience today is our strongest defence against the climate-induced collapses of tomorrow. This is not only an environmental task. It is a requirement for national healing, stability, and lasting peace.

CONCLUSION

The creation of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change in 2019 announced a national intention. A stand-alone Climate Change Act would convert that intention into law. The distinction matters. Ministries can be restructured, mandates can be narrowed, and budgets can be reallocated. The goal, however, for that statute must outlast the politics of any single administration.

The cost of delay is not theoretical. Every year without a framework law, the country loses ground that is difficult to recover. Coastal land in the Western Area. Forest cover in the south and east. Soil productivity across the breadbasket districts. Tax revenue that should be flowing from properly structured carbon markets. The international community now expects coastal and forested states to legislate, and the ICJ Advisory Opinion has made that expectation a legal one. Donor partners, multilateral lenders, and carbon market participants will increasingly distinguish between countries that have codified their obligations and those that have not. Sierra Leone cannot afford to sit in the second category.

Finally, there is, however, a question this article has not answered. What should a Sierra Leonean Climate Change Act contain, clause by clause, and how should its advocates move it through Parliament and into public ownership? A second piece is needed. One that sets out the substantive indices of a credible framework Act, draws on the drafting choices made in Nairobi, Abuja, and Kampala, and maps a realistic advocacy path through the legal profession, civil society, the chieftaincy, and the National Council on Climate Change once established. That is the next conversation. This article makes the case for the law. The next must make the case for the text.