How debt cancellation could help poor countries prepare for climate change
As the planet warms, compounding crises are pushing poor countries toward a humanitarian catastrophe. Global warming disproportionately threatens the developing world with rising sea levels, more intense storms, and scorching heat waves. At the same time, crippling debt is making it harder for many of these countries to prepare for and recover from these disasters.
A prime example is Eritrea, whose gross public debt is projected to exceed 160 percent of its GDP this year, causing the African Development Bank Group to label the country “in debt distress.” This debt may sap funds away from much-needed measures to adapt to temperature increases above the global average, extreme drought, and famine conditions like those that are currently wreaking havoc on the Horn of Africa.
Without urgent action, experts warn of a “doom loop” of deepening debt and deteriorating environmental conditions. A new report from the Climate and Community Project — a coalition of academics and policy experts working to advance climate justice — urges the United States and European countries to provide immediate relief through a program of “climate reparations,” including through large-scale debt cancellation and restructuring. Even though the least developed countries have only contributed about 8 percent of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1850, they are poised to bear the brunt of climate change’s devastating impacts.
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