COP30 must tackle the debt trap and shortfall in public finance to deliver a Just Transition
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Top story
COP30 must tackle the debt trap and shortfall in public finance to deliver a Just Transition
Despite multiple initiatives both within and beyond the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the implementation of a truly just transition at the scale and speed needed is simply not happening.Two key reasons for this are the overwhelming debt that many countries in the Global South are facing and the severe shortfall in public climate finance. The fact is that without urgent action on these issues, this month’s COP30 will not deliver what is needed to ensure a Just Transition.
Read a blog by Bertha Argueta (Eurodad) Rebecca Thissen, (CAN International) and Claire O’Manique (Oil Change International).
Download the mini-briefs "False and distracting finance solutions: Debt and climate" produced by the Debt and Climate Working Group
News
Statement from the Caribbean Policy Development Centre (CPDC) on the impact of Hurricane Melissa on Jamaica
The devastation left by Hurricane Melissa after hitting Jamaica underscores the acute vulnerability of Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to climate disasters, despite their negligible contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions. As the global climate crisis accelerates, hurricanes are becoming more intense, more frequent, and more unpredictable, and for Caribbean SIDS, each disaster compounds already fragile economic conditions.
Read the statement | Read a press release by Debt Justice UK
Civil society's statement on public services
On the year of the 80th anniversary of the United Nations, CSOs reassert the centrality of public services to the achievement of human rights and gender equality.
Blogs
Feminist reflections on the 2025 IMF–World Bank Annual Meetings
by MENA Fem
- Recalibrating the International Monetary Fund (IMF): Reflections on fiscal policy, conditionalities, and the future of global economic governance by Maria Syed
- A time for revolution—Who leads? by Fiana Arbab
- Resisting austerity, reclaiming justice by Julia Gerlo
UNCTAD 16 conference in Geneva: The right conference at the wrong time
by Global Policy Forum
The 16th Ministerial Conference of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD 16) took place amid global trade disruptions and a severe funding crisis across the UN system. While these challenges underscore the growing importance of UNCTAD’s role as a heterodox body for trade and other economic policies, they also made it a difficult moment to define the organization’s mandate for the next four years. Nevertheless, the outcome document was adopted by consensus and it includes several noteworthy innovations to UNCTAD’s role.
Reports
Debt and climate justice: Strategic engagement in UNFCCC processes at COP30 and beyond
by Debt and Climate Working Group
This briefing outlines how to strategically engage in COP30 processes to secure long-term wins on debt and climate justice. It includes key messages and recommendations for relevant UNFCCC processes and serves as an advocacy tool for insider and outsider work at COP30.
The price of money
by Global Policy Forum
Governments in the Global South pay significantly higher interest rates on loans and bonds than governments in the Global North. This financial divide is a key cause of disparities in prosperity and development around the world. The price of money determines the extent to which a state can provide goods and services for its citizens like healthcare and education. It also determines how far necessary transformations, such as climate change adaptation, can be financed from domestic resources.
The MDBs' growing role in climate finance: All that glitters is not gold
by Recourse
Ahead of COP30, this briefing examines the growing role of multilateral development banks (MDBs) in climate finance and aims to give civil society, government negotiators, and journalists a short, accessible background on the latest developments around MDBs, the main criticisms of their approach, and how they impact climate finance delivery and the achievement of the Paris Agreement. It will go from specific to broad — starting with MDBs’ direct role in climate finance delivery, to their overarching ‘Paris alignment’, to their wider development agenda championing private finance de-risking over human rights.
Climate finance for just transition: How the finance flows
by ActionAid
This report analyses climate finance flows to assess whether funding is really doing enough to put people at the centre of climate action.
Breaking the spiral of uninsurable climate losses
by Finance Watch
This report looks at how conditionality, public directionality, and prudential reform can scale up climate investment to halt the spiral of uninsurability at its source. The report calls for a coordinated EU approach to closing Europe’s natural catastrophe protection gap. It highlights the urgent need to address the root cause of the rising cost of damages from natural disasters, driven by accelerating climate change.
Useful resources
Webinar - Exposing false and distracting finance solutions ahead of COP30
The debt and climate crises are deeply connected, but false finance 'solutions' risk delaying real change. This webinar explored the evidence, talking points, and tools to push back and promote genuine, lasting solutions to the debt and climate crises.
The good, the bad, and the ugly of the Baku to Belém Roadmap to mobilize $1.3 trillion to support climate action in developing countries
by Sandra Guzmán
With COP30 just days away, the Brazilian and Azerbaijani presidencies responsible for designing the Baku to Belém Roadmap to mobilise at least $1.3 trillion have finally published an 81-page document. The document has some positive aspects, some negative aspects, and some that should not have been included at all.
Towards a feminist, people-powered just transition: An advocacy toolkit
by IBON International
A feminist agenda for sustainable consumption and production (SCP) insists that societal shift must transcend mere carbon reduction. It must dismantle the intertwined systems of exploitation—extractivism, militarism, privatisation—that have fuelled environmental destruction and social collapse. This toolkit provides grassroots movements, civil society, and advocates in the Global South tactical guidance for communications and advocacy strategies that reflect the lived experiences and grassroots leadership of feminists and activists.
FAQ: Responses to arguments against debt legislation
by Debt Justice UK
This briefing responds to arguments which have been given against the UK passing debt legislation to prevent creditors suing sovereign debtors, while the debtor is negotiating a debt restructuring in good faith and prevent creditors suing sovereign debtors in order to recover more than other creditors have recovered through the debt restructuring process.
A feminist approach to macroeconomics
by DAWN
This new website strengthens the Global South feminist analysis of current and emerging macroeconomic dynamics, their main issues and the challenges they impose. The project’s conceptual framework challenges orthodox approaches to macroeconomics by expanding the dialogue with alternative heterodox views, referencing different methodologies and going beyond traditional economic models and indicators like Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Visit the project's website | Read the latest issue of DAWN Informs
Watch the video series "Critical conversations"
by WEDO
"Critical conversations" is a new interview series that expands the lens on just transition to include feminist, decolonial, and grassroots perspectives.
Feminist political economy teach-in series
by South Feminist Futures
Running at least since 2022, the "Feminist political economy teach-in series" aims to foster intergenerational dialogue and build a cross-regional feminist constituency. The sessions cover a wide range of topics from feminist internationalism and structural violence to debt as a form of government and the platform economy.
Mined and buried: Debt and extractivism in the Global South
by IBON International
In this episode of the podcast "Power from the ground" Carola Mejía (LATINDADD) and Jiten Yumnam (CRAM) expose how debt and deregulation sustain extractivism and deepen inequality, and how communities across the South are resisting these neocolonial systems in the fight for climate and economic justice.
Watch the video | Listen to the podcast
Jobs
Senior Research Officer/Coordinator • International Budget Partnership • Deadline: 10 November
Events
8 Nov | Online | Debt strategies amidst shrinking civic space: experience, lessons and way forward
The webinar session will offer insight into current civil society strategies in environments of shrinking civic space, especially in relation to debt advocacy, multilateral spaces like the UN and global economic institutions, and the 2025 Jubilee campaign. The speakers will share observations on the theme from their work in different countries, addressing the following questions: What are the main indicators and facts that show civil society space is shrinking? How does the trend affect the work on debt/economic, fiscal issues? How are advocates responding to the challenges, and are there stories or strategies of creative resistance that can help show a way forward?
14 Nov | Belém | Debt, dependency, and climate justice: Unpacking the fossil fuel financing trap in the Global South
Fossil fuel financing is driving Global South countries deeper into debt, locking them into projects that harm communities, strain public finances, and derail climate goals. This session will unpack how debt-fueled fossil fuel investments undermine just transitions. Civil society groups from across Asia will present case studies, highlight community impacts, and discuss pathways toward debt cancellation, ending fossil fuel finance, and scaling up renewable energy solutions.
15 Nov | Global day of action for climate justice
On 15 November, during COP30, activists and civil society will take to the streets of Belém and all over the world to raise their voices against the climate crisis.
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This newsletter has been produced with co-funding from the European Union, Bread for the World and Norad. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Eurodad and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the funders. |
