A confluence of crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, is exacerbating inequalities in many countries around the world, leaving Africans particularly vulnerable to hunger, unemployment, and worsening poverty. The climate emergency reinforces these inequalities and vulnerabilities. Globally, the need for an environmental rights-based approach to sustainable development, founded on principles of equity, has received increasing attention. In Africa specifically, more work needs to be done to integrate rights into environmental and climate frameworks and support communities in protecting their territories and stopping violations. Climate cases, supported by international human rights frameworks, have increasingly asserted environmental rights, in response to the need for intergenerational justice and to protect communities from the threats of climate change. Three court cases from Kenya and South Africa, Save Lamu, Earthlife Africa, and PHA Food and Farming Campaign, all driven by grassroots campaigns, illustrate how climate change concerns have been successfully brought before the courts and how these judgments set a hopeful precedent for other communities.