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Articles by Tess Woolfenden
Reaction to £2 bus fare cap funded by switching international climate finance from grants to loans
In response to Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s £2 bus fare cap funded by switching international climate finance from grants to loans, Heidi Chow, Executive Director of Debt Justice, said: “This is a welcome step for the millions of people forced into debt to pay for essentials by the cost of living crisis across the UK.
Why a UN convention is critical for climate justice
Debt is a major obstacle to climate action. Across Global South countries, debt payments to external creditors have reached their highest levels in 30 years, with around 130 countries in or near debt distress. As global geopolitical and economic shocks continue – including the US-Israel war on Iran – the situation is likely to worsen. In this blog, Tess Woolfenden and Mae Buenaventura explore how the international community can achieve climate justice.
Why 2025 is a crucial year for debt and climate justice
Across the Global South, unsustainable debt is deepening poverty, fuelling inequality and driving climate vulnerability – but 2025 represents a unique and urgent opportunity to address this unjust burden. Leaders from debtor nations are making bold demands for debt justice, campaigners are bringing together a huge global movement, and the crucial Financing for Development Conference is on the horizon.
Opinion: Why debt swaps are failing the renewable energy transition
Debt swaps related to nature or climate goals have been on the rise in recent years, touted as a solution to the growing debt crisis and the severe lack of climate finance for vulnerable nations. However, while they seem attractive, these swaps often fall short of their promises, creating more problems than they solve. While the focus on debt swaps has primarily been on nature and conservation, there is also a growing trend toward debt swaps that free up some resources for renewable energy.
The climate crisis is heating up, here’s why we can’t solve it without dealing with the debt crisis
The climate crisis is intensifying across lower-income countries. From severe droughts and flooding in Zambia to intensifying hurricanes across the Caribbean, the communities least responsible are bearing the brunt of an emergency created by rich countries and companies. Many of the same countries are in debt crisis, facing the worst debt levels in over 25 years.
Urgent Action Required: why rich countries must address debt to combat the climate emergency
Following the G7 summit and the Bonn climate talks, groups around the world are calling for debt justice as a vital step for addressing the climate crisis. Here’s why this is important, and what rich countries can do about it. Debt payments for the most climate vulnerable countries are at their highest level in at least 30 years.
Climate finance - our Impact Coalition recommendations
Over the past twelve years of our work as a Coalition, we’ve built a network of some 70 civil society organisations that work closely with communities all around the world in order to define what is a green economy. This work gathers and analyses the participative recommendations of citizens groups, trade unions, community groups and local organisations, in order to better understand ordinary people and their priorities when it comes to sustainability, development, and the environment.
Over the hill or a spring in their step?
Last month the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank held their annual spring meetings in Washington DC, celebrating 80 years since their creation at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference. The meetings brought together heavy hitters from the worlds of policy, finance, central banking, and investment. Outside the heady horse-trading of Washington DC, the world continued its slow-motion stumble towards institutional rot, populist revolt and an unliveable atmosphere.
How did COP30 stack up against demands for debt and climate justice?
COP30 in Belém has now come to an end. What was billed as the “people’s COP” was, in reality, a conference dominated by fossil fuel lobbyists and inaccessible to many affected by the climate crisis. Even so, after three years of restrictions by authoritarian government hosts, Indigenous peoples, local communities, movements, and civil society reclaimed the streets to demand climate justice – despite intense, militarised security.
Reaction to debt relief deal for Ghana
For more information and interviews contact Jerome Phelps on +44 7307 620372 The Ghanaian government has reported that Ghana’s official creditor committee has reached a deal to restructure the country’s debt. Reacting to the announcement, Bernard Anaba from the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) in Ghana said: “It is good progress with the bilateral creditors, but now Ghanaians expect the private creditors to step in and cancel the majority of the debt.
COP28 outcomes for debt justice: a legacy of deepending debt crisis
The curtains were drawn on COP28 yesterday as negotiations came to an end a day later than expected. Despite some progress on acknowledging the need to transition away from fossil fuels, the outcomes have not met the needs of communities around the world and leave global south countries without the resources they urgently require to fund climate action.
Lower-income countries have paid out $2.7 trillion in interest payments since 1970
For more information and interviews contact Jerome Phelps on +44 7307 620372 Lower-income countries have been forced to pay out $2.7 trillion in interest payments to creditors since 1970, according to new a new report by Debt Justice [1]. Western creditors have received the vast majority (82%) of these interest payments, making returns of $2.2 trillion. China received $60 billion in interest over the same period, and other non-western creditors received $428 billion.
Reaction to new taskforce to boost sustainability-linked sovereign financing for nature and climate at COP28
For more information and interviews contact Jerome Phelps on +44 7307 620372 The Joint Declaration and Task Force on Credit Enhancement for Sustainability-Linked Sovereign Financing was announced today at COP28 by multilateral development banks and other international organisations. It aims to “boost sustainability-linked sovereign financing for nature and climate” for lower income countries.
Reaction to UK Climate Resilient Debt Clauses and investment announcement at COP28
For more information and interviews contact Jerome Phelps on +44 7307 620372 The UK has announced today on climate finance day at COP28 that it has reached an agreement to add Climate Resilient Debt Clauses to its new and existing loan agreements with Senegal and Guyana.
Yanis Varoufakis, Thomas Picketty, Vanessa Nakate, and leading experts call for debt cancellation at COP28
For more information and interviews contact Jerome Phelps on +44 7307 620372 More than 550 economists, development and climate experts including leading economists Yanis Varoufakis, Thomas Picketty, Jayati Ghosh, Ann Pettifor and Jason Hickel, philosopher Olufemi Taiwo and climate activists Vanessa Nakate and Hilda Nakabuye, have signed an open letter calling for debt cancellation at COP28.
NEW REPORT: The colonial roots of global south debt
This report exposes how current global south debt is both a colonial legacy, and a neo-colonial tool used by global north governments, institutions and corporations to plunder the wealth of, and extend their control over, global south countries and communities. Despite presenting themselves as the generous providers of loans, global north elites use debt to maintain their power and wealth in the global system. The benefits for global north powers have been stark.
Lower-income countries have paid out $2.7 trillion in interest payments since 1970
For more information and interviews contact Jerome Phelps on +44 7307 620372 Lower-income countries have been forced to pay out $2.7 trillion in interest payments to creditors since 1970, according to new a new report by Debt Justice [1]. Western creditors have received the vast majority (82%) of these interest payments, making returns of $2.2 trillion. China received $60 billion in interest over the same period, and other non-western creditors received $428 billion.
Reports & Briefings
11 Aug 2025 Earlier this month, as protesters again took to the streets in Kenya, President Ruto told police that they should “shoot their legs so they break”.
NEW REPORT: Decoding Debt Injustice
This guide sets out how to collect, analyse, and present data, to shed new light on how the global debt crisis impacts people’s rights. Co-published with The Centre of Economic and Social Rights, it is for anyone who wants to understand — and take action to tackle — the true social costs of these seemingly technical decisions. Debt has traditionally been seen as a public finance issue.
Tess Woolfenden
In the current age of climate emergency, many countries in debt are being forced by Global North elites and institutions to continue…
Neocolonial Debt Traps Are Forcing Poorer Countries to Rely on Fossil Fuels
In the current age of climate emergency, many countries in debt are being forced by Global North elites and institutions to continue to rely on fossil fuels in order to repay loans taken from rich countries.
NEW BRIEFING: The Debt-Fossil Fuel Trap
This new briefing exposes the debt-fossil fuel trap that many countries in the global south are trapped in and proposes solutions to break this toxic cycle. Published with allies from around the world, the briefing outlines how many countries in the global south rely on fossil fuel revenues to repay debt. However, anticipated revenues are often overinflated and require huge investments to reach expected returns, leading to further debt, and causing devastating environmental and human harm.
Reaction to IMF board approval of $3bn loan to Pakistan
For more information and interviews contact Jerome Phelps on +44 7307 620372 The IMF has agreed to disburse a loan of $3 billion to Pakistan, following other new loans from governments such as China, UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Summit for a New Global Financing Pact fails to deliver on debt - Debt Justice
For more information and interviews contact Tim Jones on +44 7307 620372 Responding to the outcome of the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact held in Paris this week, Tess Woolfenden, Senior Policy Officer at Debt Justice said: “The Summit for a New Global Financing Pact has failed to deliver real solutions to the debt crisis in the global south. No new powers have been given to debtor countries to help them cancel unjust and unsustainable debts.
The global debt crisis and the need for reparations
More and more global South and civil society leaders have started calling not just for debt cancellation but for reparations. But what does this mean and what is being called for? Reparations seek to repair the harms of historical injustices such as colonisation, neo-colonialism and enslavement, and the ways they still show up in, and shape, society today. They also seek to put an end to these forms of injustice and instead create a world that is free from oppression, exploitation and extraction.
Artist call-out: Debt, colonialism, and the climate
Debt Justice is looking to commission up to ten new pieces of visual and/or performance art for an exhibition exploring the links between debt and colonialism, with some works also addressing the climate crisis. For full details please see the Artist Call-Out Brief. Alternative formats: if you’d like an audio recording of this brief, drop us a message at exhibition@debtjustice.org.uk or call +44 (0) 7450 875495. Please note this line is only monitored parttime, so please leave a message. Tags
Wiping the slate clean: no climate justice without debt justice for…
The International Institute for Environment and Development’s Paul Steele proposed the idea of debt for climate and nature programme swaps, which would tackle the ‘triple crisis of debt, climate and biodiversity loss’. In this model, debt would be swapped for productive investment in climate resilience and protect biodiversity-rich environments.
The Climate Crisis Is Also a Debt Crisis
Countries in the Global South, which are the least responsible for carbon emissions and the climate crisis, are feeling its impacts first and most severely. Climate change is leading to more frequent and intense extreme weather events around the world. Caribbean islands and other Small Island Developing States in particular are responsible for just 0.2% of emissions, yet are being repeatedly devastated by the intensified hurricanes of a hotter world.
COP26 takeaways: Rich polluters still refuse to pay climate debt
The UN climate talks (COP26) in Glasgow drew to a close on Saturday, marking the end of 13 days of negotiations amongst world leaders on how best to address the climate crisis. The negotiations presented a vital opportunity for rich nations to step up and finally deliver on their climate debt by providing adequate climate finance in the form of grants, to compensate lower income countries for the damage that two centuries of emissions have already caused them.
NEW BRIEFING - Debt and the climate crisis: a perfect storm
This joint briefing explores the links between debt and the climate emergency and demonstrates the importance of addressing unsustainable debt in the global South for achieving climate justice.
Earthquakes, storms and colonial debt : The need for debt relief in Haiti – CADTM
The Caribbean country of Haiti was hit by a devastating earthquake earlier this month, destroying tens of thousands of homes and taking the lives of nearly 2,000 people while a further 10,000 are missing or injured. It came only a few weeks after the assassination of the country’s President, Jovenel Moïse. Haiti, one of the world’s poorest countries, is also vulnerable to the harsh realities of the climate crisis.
The G7 ducks the challenge of the debt crisis
Over the last few weeks, the attention of the world has been on the leaders of the G7 as they discussed the critical issues we all face, including vaccines, tax reform and the climate crisis. We kept a close eye on the process (a very close eye for some of us – see below), especially given that the UK government has been hosting the discussions this year.
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