Beyond Climate Finance: Climate ambition in the Global South requires financial system reforms

Losses and damage due to climate change are largely concentrated in the countries of the Global South. These are also the countries that need finance for climate transition to help them develop, without adding significantly to the stock of greenhouse emissions. Current climate finance is inadequate.

But nations of the Global South face other financial handicaps that hinder their climate ambitions -- a growing debt crisis is one of them. Many low and middle-income countries pay more in annual debt servicing costs than what they would need to spend annually to achieve their NDC goals. Countries in the South also face prohibitively high costs of capital, particularly for green technologies, which hinders the economic attractiveness of clean energy investment in these countries even if they possess rich renewable resources.

Now, when we view the pressure to decarbonise against all these challenges, it looks as if the walls are closing in from all sides for the Global South. This system is broken and needs urgent reform. Climate ambition cannot be unlocked whilst operating in a financial system that is inequitable by design.

On June 22-23, France is hosting a Summit for a New Global Financing Pact in Paris, "to build a new contract between the countries of the North and the South to address climate change and the global crisis". This offers an opportunity for civil society and scholars to strongly put forward a case for the urgent systemic reforms that the Global South needs.

Join us for a round table discussion with international experts to explore truly transformational solutions and how they can be implemented. We will also release our position paper on the subject on this occasion.

Avantika Goswami from CSE is attending the finance summit in Paris and reporting from there. You can reach out to her at avantika.goswami@cseindia.org 

For more details, connect with Sukanya Nair, sukanya.nair@cseindia.org Phone: +91-8816818864