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In response to the destruction caused by Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean, Richard Jones, Executive Director of Caribbean Policy Development Centre, said:
Across the Caribbean, hurricanes are becoming more intense, more frequent, and more unpredictable as the global climate crisis accelerates. For Caribbean states, each disaster compounds already fragile economic conditions. Mounting reconstruction costs often force governments into deeper debt, leaving the region among the most indebted in the world. The human and social toll is equally severe – families displaced, communities fractured, and years of development progress undone. The global financial architecture must offer solutions beyond debt-creating, non-concessional financing, including a comprehensive debt relief and reform framework that recognizes the historical inequities and climate burdens confronting Caribbean nations.
Heidi Chow, Executive Director of Debt Justice, said
Hurricane Melissa is wreaking devastation across Jamaica and other Caribbean islands. The Caribbean did not cause the climate emergency, but countries are being forced to borrow to pay for the vast costs of reconstruction, on top of an already heavy burden of debt. Rich countries must urgently provide adequate climate finance as grants, not loans, in line with the climate and ecological debt that they owe to lower-income countries.
Iolanda Fresnillo, Policy and Advocacy Manager at Eurodad, said:
The international financial architecture and climate finance frameworks are not fit for purpose to address the challenges faced by countries like Jamaica, suffering from the devastating impacts of climate change, while not being responsible for creating the problem. All Jamaica has at their disposal are market based, debt-inducing and inadequate solutions, like insurance, catastrophe bonds and new lending, that they have to pay for. Meanwhile, adaptation to climate change, and particularly the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, remain profoundly underfunded, and there’s no structural option for debt payments pause or cancellation for Jamaica.
Notes:
Debt Justice (formerly Jubilee Debt Campaign) is a UK charity working to end poverty caused by unjust debt through education, research and campaigning: https://debtjustice.org.uk/
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