[VIDEO]: Developing Countries' Daunting Debt-Climate Dilemma
published on 18 December 2023
Many countries are caught in a spiral of climate disasters, reconstruction costs and the impossibility of investing in the climate in the long term. A new AFD tool makes it possible to measure the dual economic and climatic vulnerability of 160 countries, which in turn can pave the way to concrete courses of action. Find out how in this video.
Some states are economically fragile. Others bear the brunt of multiple, extreme weather events. And many endure both financial and environmental stress.
In a world hit simultaneously by economic, health and military crises, and by the acceleration of environmental disasters, the impact of both financial and climatic vulnerability is plunging a number of countries into a vicious circle known as the debt-climate spiral.
This is the case of Cuba, Sri Lanka, Laos and Mozambique, to name just a few.
Check out this video explaining the debt-climate spiral and showing where countries sit on the climate-economy axes. (Be sure to select English subtitles.)
Preventing this vicious circle is the objective of the study “Climate-financial trap: An Empirical Approach to Detecting Double Vulnerability”, a paper made possible thanks to an analytical tool created by Bastien Bedossa, specialist in climate policies, in collaboration with AFD.
In addition to measuring the consequences for the countries concerned, the study proposes different courses of action, such as the creation of international public insurance for the most vulnerable countries, which would help absorb the costs of climate shocks.
