How are climate and debt interconnected? Which countries are the most affected by climate change and debt distress? What do we mean when we talk about climate finance? Why do governments in the global north need to provide climate finance to the global south? What's wrong with climate in relation to the debt crisis? What is the impact of climate change and debt on gender equality and women's rights? What can governments and international institutions do to tackle the interlinkages between debt and climate crises? How can I get involved? How can I monitor the debt and climate finance situations worldwide?

How can I monitor the debt and climate finance situations worldwide?

Debt

The World Bank’s International Debt Statistics provide plenty of data on debt in developing countries – here you have access to all the data and here to selected debt data (you can also check the WB update on DSSI – Check-out the Eurodad shadow report on the DSSI to contrast official information.

Erlassjahr’s Global Sovereign Debt Monitor, 2021. 132 out of 148 countries surveyed in the global south are critically indebted. 21 countries are currently in partial default.

Jubilee Debt Campaign’s Debt Data Portal. It tracks a country’s debt situation through six categories, including the organisation’s own risk analysis. According to it, there are 52 countries that are suffering from a debt crisis as of September 2021. You can also check their “Guide to understanding and accessing debt information.”

Latindadd has recently published a report on debt in the Latin American region “Latin America: Between debt and  the pandemic. Guarded prognosis”. For updates on debt in sub-saharan Africa you can check the African Sovereign Debt Justice Network (AfSDJN) Sovereign Debt News Updates. Eurodad has also recently published a report on the “2020 Debt Pandemic” and on “Sovereign Debt Bonds” (you can download a dataset built for this report).

Climate

OECD data and report on Climate Finance mobilised by developed countries (2013-18). To get an alternative view of the OECD data, you can check the Climate finance shadow report 2020 produced by Oxfam.

The European Commission also reports on European international climate finance. For a critical analysis you can check the report “An analysis of the climate finance reporting of the European Union” by Act Alliance.

We also recommend the Eurodad report “How lessons from development finance can strengthen climate finance“ (2021)

For a more comprehensive set of data, you can check the UNFCCC’s biennial assessments and overview of climate finance. As for general progress in climate change mitigation and adaptation, the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) will become effective in 2024. It requires countries to transparently report on support received and provided. In the meantime, citizens can monitor their own country’s climate finance commitments on the Biennial Reports and the Common Tabular Format (CTF) submitted by Annex 1.