Co-hosted by the Scottish Government and Scottish civil society, the Glasgow Climate Dialogues provided a platform for Global South experts to engage with key actors in Scotland ahead of COP 26.
Jubilee Scotland played a key role in organising the dialogues, which were held in recognition of the disproportionate impact of climate change on the Global South and the need for Global South voices and priorities to be central to the summit.
The dialogues explored four themes: access, participation and voice; adaption and resilience; loss and damage; and just transition. The outputs of the dialogues were summarised in a communiqué intended to provide inputs to the COP 26 negotiations.
The links between climate change and the debt crisis were discussed in the Adaptation and Resilience session.
Nafkote Dabi, Climate Change Policy Lead at Oxfam International explained that international climate finance – which is supposed to help low-income countries adapt – is at the same time increasing their debt burden, because 80% of the funding is provided as loans instead of grants.
This point was echoed by Janine Felson, Belize’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, who stressed the climate injustice of leaving those who have contributed least to the climate crisis, but are most exposed to the impacts, to bear the costs.
Reflecting on the discussion, Jamie Williams from Islamic Relief Worldwide called for increasing the volume of finance through grants and not driving indebtedness to be ‘at the top of list’ for COP26.
These points were captured in the communiqué, which calls for developed countries to “…meet their US$100bn annual climate finance promise with the target of a 50:50 split between mitigation and adaptation finance achieved and funding provided as concessional grants, not loans.”
You can see a video about the dialogues here.
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