Climate-vulnerable countries are spending 25 times more on debt than on climate action
A new ActionAid report finds that debt repayment will consume 65% of government revenue this year across 65 highly climate-vulnerable countries, leaving little room to invest in adapting to a warming world.
According to a piece published Saturday by Alissa de Chassey on Inside Climate News, a new report from ActionAid finds that climate-vulnerable countries are spending roughly 25 times more on debt repayment than on climate action. Debt servicing is projected to consume 65% of government revenue across 65 highly climate-vulnerable countries in 2026, and more than 93% of those countries are already in a debt crisis or at significant risk of one.
Part of the problem, the report finds, is that two-thirds of international climate finance from wealthier Global North countries arrives as loans rather than grants, adding to the debt burden of countries least responsible for causing climate change. Sub-Saharan Africa bears the greatest weight of this cycle, the report says, with nations forced to borrow to cope with climate impacts they didn't cause.
Zambia illustrates the scale of the imbalance: the country puts 60% of its budget toward debt repayment but only 0.32% toward climate adaptation and resilience, even after an El Nino-driven drought affected more than 9 million people. "They are only getting to keep one third of the money that they are actually raising" for services like healthcare and education, ActionAid's climate justice lead Teresa Anderson told the outlet.
Alissa de Chassey, Inside Climate News: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19092026/for-climate-vulnerable-countries-debt-costs-25-times-more-than-climate-action/
This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by an editor before publication.
