The post-2025 Climate Finance Goal: It is essential to address the issue of debt in the next expert dialogue

Unsustainable debt burdens are threatening to jeopardise the very integrity of the Paris Agreement and the objective of limiting global temperature rise below 1.5°. Unsustainable debt burdens are preventing meaningful efforts to implement mitigation and adaptation measures, as well as derailing measures to avert, minimise and address loss and damage, particularly for countries in the global south.

Latindadd, Eurodad, Debt Justice, Jubilee USA, ActionAid, Debt Justice Norway, and the Bretton Woods Project have responded to a public consultation ahead of the Dialogue. It is additionally supported by 38 civil society organisations (CSOs), including environmental and climate CSOs, human rights CSOs, and gender CSOs. A full list of CSOs supporting this submission can be found below.

Key messages:

• The Seventh Technical Expert Dialogue (TED 7) on the New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance (NCQG) needs to integrate considerations about the vicious cycle of escalating debt and climate crises to protect the integrity of the Paris Agreement.

• The process of setting an NCQG should not result in further indebtedness from climate finance in the global south and thus should follow the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities, and adopt a climate justice perspective.

• Access to high-quality, new, public and additional, debtfree, pro-poor, gender-responsive, climate finance grants that are free from economic conditions must be prioritised.

• All climate finance contributions must be aligned with the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, and must also be aligned with a human-rights and a feminist gender responsive approach.

• An automatic debt service suspension mechanism must be included in future multilateral, bilateral, financial intermediary and private loans.

• Unconditional debt cancellation must be ensured for all countries that need it, across all creditors (bilateral, multilateral and private).

• A longer term goal should be to establish a multilateral debt workout process under the auspices of the United Nations that can help countries break the vicious cycle of escalating debt and climate crises.

• Loan and investment contracts (bilateral, multilateral, private and intermediary) must be designed in a participatory manner, and lending terms must be publicly disclosed.

• All climate finance contributors must follow responsible borrowing and lending principles.

To read the full submission click here.

List of Civil Society Organisations that support this submission

International

• Global Policy Forum Europe
• ADRA Canada
• Dette du climat
• Oxfam
• Heinrich Böll Stiftung Washington, DC
• The Loss and Damage Collaboration (L&DC)
• YOUNGO

Africa

• Southern and Eastern Africa Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI) Uganda 
• AbibiNsroma Foundation 
• CLIMATE ACTION NETWORK ZIMBABWE 
• Go green Sudan 
• The IMAL Initiative for Climate and Development 
• Budget Advocacy Network 

Middle East

• Arab youth Climate Movement-Lebanon 

Asia-Pacific

• Indigenous Peoples’ Organisation-Australia 

Europe

• Lithuanian NGDO Platform
• Electra Energy Cooperative
• erlassjahr.de – Entwicklung braucht Entschuldung e. V. (Jubilee Germany)
• Spire
• CNCD-11.11.11
• Act Church of Sweden
• Finnish Development NGOs – Fingo
• Recourse
• SCIAF
• Klimadelegation e.V.
• World Economy, Ecology & Development – WEED
• Christian Aid
• Jubilee Scotland
• Global Witness

North America

• Equidad de Género: Ciudadanía, Trabajo y Familia
• Climate and Community Project
• AidWatch Canada
• Grandmothers Advocacy Network (GRAN)

Oceania

• Climate Action Network Australia
• Pacific Islands Climate Action Network

South America

• Asociación Ambiente y Sociedad

Central America

• La Ruta del Clima