Tag: global south

12th October 2023

“Global south countries are currently spending five times more on repaying debt than they are on addressing the impacts of the climate crisis.”(1) 

Poor to start with, these countries have to borrow to fund basics such as road building, education, housing and healthcare – imagine how a country could pay for these from taxation when only, say, 5% of the population earns enough to pay tax. Add to that the increasing cost of the climate crisis – the cost of flood destroyed agriculture, infrastructure and homes; the cost of rising sea levels destroying costal areas and undermining agricultural fertility with saline water; the cost of droughts and wildfires destroying crops, infrastructure and homes. See how more debts escalate! And how can these countries find still more money to protect infrastructure and livelihoods against further climate change?

That is why “Cancel the Debt” is campaigning for the rich countries of the north that have made their fortunes through fossil fuels, to cancel these debts. 

Like a bizarre plot twist, many of the indebted countries of the global south have been encouraged to develop fossil fuels as a way of boosting their GDP! But what was billed as means to a buoyant future has become a millstone round their necks. The evidence is that they become mired in a “debt-fossil-fuel production trap whereby countries rely on fossil fuel revenues to repay debt, and anticipated revenues from fossil fuels are often over inflated and require huge investments to reach expected returns, leading to further debt, eroding long-term development prospects, and causing devastating environmental and human harms.” (1)

Today various groups including Debt Justice, War on Want, the London Mining Network, and Christian Climate Action, are holding a demonstration outside the Bank of England, calling for the cancellation of the debts of the Global South. 

For a related article on debt see – https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/11/severe-debt-burdens-thwarting-progress-on-climate-and-poverty-says-world-bank?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

(1) https://debtjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Debt-fossil-fuel-trap-report-2023.pdf