Ahead of a trip to Southeast Asia in August, Pope Francis declared, ‘If we took the planet's temperature, it will tell us that the Earth has a fever. And it is sick.’ The pontiff urged listeners around the world to make changes to personal and community habits which, ‘are not only ecological, but are also social, economic and political.’ This echoes the central message of Laudato Si' which calls for an integral ecology that recognises the interconnectedness of environmental, social, and economic systems.
The annual Conference of the Parties (COP) is an opportunity for the world to take stock of those habits and commit to collective change. It is where the Kyoto Protocol, Copenhagen Accord, and Paris Agreement were reached, which established collective and ambitious, top-down and bottom-up approaches to climate change, with a target to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees.
Underpinning the global collaboration on climate change — and the agreement of the Global South in this — is an understanding that the rich countries of the world, recognising that it is their historical carbon emissions that have substantially caused climate change, will provide the funding for a transition to a post-carbon future. As such, all these agreements call for financial resources to be given by developed countries to vulnerable countries experiencing the worst of climate impacts. Without this, there would be no broad-based agreement to address climate change together, which is key to the COP system.
This year was being referred to as the ‘finance COP’ in recognition of new financial targets needing to be set that honour this dynamic and fulfil the promise the Global North had held out to the majority world. Back in 2009, countries agreed on a climate finance goal of jointly mobilising $100bn per year by 2020, a goal that was met slightly later than anticipated in 2022, with some doubt over the validity that it has been met properly. For context on these figures, global GDP sat at $100 trillion in 2022, with the $100bn in climate finance accounting for just 0.1 per cent of that. So, while these numbers seem large, they pale in comparison to global wealth, with the US and China collectively taking a 42 percent share of that wealth as the world’s largest economies. Despite this, much of the $100bn came in the form of loans instead of grants, worsening the debt burden for vulnerable countries.
In accordance with the critiques made out in Laudato Si’, financial systems often prioritise profit over the wellbeing of people and ecosystems, perpetuating global inequalities. This is a clear example of this short-sighted, profit-driven dynamic.
It was hoped this would be addressed at COP29, with world leaders armed with new valuations for climate adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage — estimated to reach $1.3 trillion per year by 2030 — and an understanding of what ‘good’ financing looks like i.e. grants, not profit-making loans. Sadly, while $1.3 trillion was agreed as a goal, just $300bn of this was actually the subject of commitments from developed countries, leaving developing countries with a $1 trillion annual shortfall to be filled. There is not even a guarantee that the $300 billion will be delivered as high-quality finance in the form of grants rather than debt-generating loans, and instead the Global North is spruiking private finance as a way of filling that gap.
This approach not only increases economic vulnerability for developing countries but also violates the principles of justice and solidarity emphasised in church teachings. Many developing countries walked out of the meeting on Saturday in protest of the outcome, feeling betrayed by the financial and ecological injustices on display.
This perspective of injustice is shared by the church and reflected in its Jubilee 2025 campaign. The Jubilee year, Pilgrims of Hope, begins at Christmas and asks the faithful to listen to the cry of the poor, care for creation, and stand in solidarity with those suffering around the world. In the lead up to this, Pope Francis has spoken directly to the sovereign debt crisis faced by the developing world, whereby around 50 countries are beginning to pay more for debt service obligations than they do for development, education, health, or climate adaptation.
'It is abundantly clear that the international community is out of step with Pacific needs - and the needs of the developing world as a whole - when it comes to covering the cost of adjusting to a warmer world.'
The fact that the outcome of COP29 did not address this is deeply disappointing, and something Australians feel especially strongly about, given our proximity to our Pacific neighbours. At COP29, Caritas Australia launched a new report, Weathering the Storm, which examined the tensions between debt and climate challenges in the Pacific. It revealed a USD $1bn gap in climate finance in the region but also showed that many Pacific countries have suffered worsening debt-to-GDP profiles in recent years. Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga are three countries with a debt service-to-revenue ratio around 15 percent, a level at which debt repayments begin to undermine governments’ ability to deliver basic services.
Weathering the Storm also highlights how Pacific debt is largely owed to external creditors from countries that have repeatedly committed to taking responsibility for climate costs in vulnerable nations. This dynamic simply does not make sense and has been perpetuated by the global community this year at COP29.
If governments are not motivated by the principles of care for our common home as set out in Laudato Si', then there are significant economic and security-related motivations to consider as well. Caritas Australia recently participated in the launch of A Safer World for All, which aims to increase Australia’s aid budget from 0.68 percent of our national income to an incredibly modest 1 per cent. The campaign points out that 10 of the top 15 countries Australia trades with are ones we previously provided aid to, underscoring an economic case for shoring up developing countries. For us in Australia too, having respectful relationships with our neighbours in the Pacific — relationships where they stand strong as resilient and valued nations — is undoubtedly part of our national security considerations.
Some good news did come out of COP29, with Caritas Australia welcoming investments from the Australian government into the Loss and Damage Fund, as well as increased support for renewables in the Pacific. However, if we pan out to the global picture, it is abundantly clear that the international community is out of step with Pacific needs — and the needs of the developing world as a whole — when it comes to covering the cost of adjusting to a warmer world.
Dr Damian Spruce is Associate Director Advocacy and Government Relations at Caritas Australia.
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