From Black Gold to Green Promises: Law, Climate Anxiety, and Oil Divestments Across Continents: Eavesdropping on Nigeria, Senegal and the Netherlands

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This paper examined the legal transition from fossil-fuel dependence (“black gold”) to climate-driven divestment and green investment across multiple continents. It adopted a doctrinal legal analysis of climate legislation, energy transition policies, investment treaties, and financial disclosure regimes to assess how law responded to climate anxiety and capital reallocation. The analysis showed benefits including enhanced regulatory clarity for low-carbon investments, growing climate accountability of corporations, and alignment of finance with sustainability goals. However, detriments emerged in the form of stranded assets, regulatory uncertainty for hydrocarbon-dependent economies, and uneven transition costs borne by workers and resource-dependent communities. The principal challenges identified were fragmented climate governance, investor–state disputes arising from rapid policy shifts, and the absence of uniform global standards for divestment and transition finance. The findings revealed that while divestment pressures accelerated renewable investment in developed markets, developing states faced heightened fiscal and social risks without adequate transition support. The paper concluded that law functioned as both a catalyst and a stabilizer in the energy transition, shaping the pace and fairness of divestment. It recommended clearer transition clauses in investment treaties, stronger climate-risk disclosure obligations, just-transition frameworks for affected communities, and coordinated international financing mechanisms to balance climate ambition with economic stability