Document
58th Session of the UN Human Rights Council
ITEM 3 – General debate, 17 March 2025
Mr President,
Climate change is an existential challenge for developing countries that are highly vulnerable to climate impacts yet have scant resources to adapt and build resilience to runaway climate change.
Obligations to repay debt are preventing governments from protecting the rights to health, education, and a clean environment in their countries, and responding to the climate emergency. Following extreme climatic events, these countries need to borrow more to support communities and to fund reconstruction, trapping them in a vicious cycle of debt.
COP29 established a roadmap to deliver 1.3 trillion US dollars in climate finance to developing countries which demands a holistic approach to break down silos between climate finance, debt and tax policy and connect ambitious climate action with deep reform of the global financial architecture.
In line with the Biblical Jubilee tradition, we call on this Council to fully support the proposals of the Independent Expert on the Effects of Foreign Debt to cancel unjust and unsustainable debt without harmful austerity conditions and to promote a fairer system of taxation.
We call upon this Council to support a transparent debt restructuring framework and a UN Debt Convention to develop rules on settling debt crises in a fair and accountable manner, and to address the nexus between climate, debt, tax and human rights. The global financial system must deliver climate reparations for climate vulnerable communities and uphold human rights in a time of climate crisis.
Thank you.
* The statement was cosigned by the Anglican Communion, Franciscans International, and Lutheran World Federation.
