The annual finance needs for Pacific nations facing climate mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage costs could, conservatively, be about $US1.5 billion ($2.3 billion), a new report reveals. Source: Caritas Australia.
Meanwhile, estimates of climate financing delivered annually between 2015 and 2020 sit at between $US 200 million and 600 million, pointing to an annual financing gap in the region of $US 1 billion.
The estimates appear in Weathering the Storm, a report from Caritas Oceania, Caritas Australia and Jubilee Australia Research Centre.
The report examines tensions between debt and climate challenges in the Pacific, coinciding with COP29, currently taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Many Pacific countries have suffered worsening debt in recent years. For some this is owed to large borrowing due to pandemic-induced loss of economic activity.
The report examines this debt in the context of an urgent requirement for these countries to invest in climate adaptation and mitigation, and to cover climate related loss and damage.
Caritas Oceania president Cardinal Soane Mafi Tonga and Niue said: “For those of us in the Pacific, the connections between debt and climate disasters are important ones to consider.
“In many developing countries, and countries that are vulnerable to climate change, governments are paying more in interest and other debt servicing obligations than they are on health, education, or climate adaptation.
“Action must be to be taken to forgive debt and prevent it in the future.”
The report has three recommendations:
- An immediate increase of climate finance – additional to official aid – to the Pacific to ensure that mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage are adequately funded;
- The delivery of finance as grants, not loans, via a UN vehicle rather than banks;
- A response to the sovereign debt crises, allowing for the cancellation or restructuring of unsustainable and illegitimate debts, alongside better assessments, more transparency and greater protections for vulnerable countries.
To support climate-vulnerable communities via Caritas Australia’s programs, visit www.caritas.org.au/climatecrisis or read the Weathering the Storm report.
FULL STORY
Caritas draws attention to $1bn Pacific climate finance gap at COP29 (Caritas Australia)
