Africa will not get climate justice without debt justice

Hailemariam Desalegn Boshe is a former Prime Minister of Ethiopia and Member of the African Leaders Debt Relief Initiative (ALDRI).

Ahead of the second Africa Climate Summit in Addis Ababa in September, the message must be clear: Africa cannot wait.

Africa contributes less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it is on the frontline of the climate crisis.

In just the past year, deadly floods have swept through countries from Democratic Republic of Congo to South Africa, while relentless heatwaves scorched South Sudan and droughts exacted a heavy toll on farmers across the continent.

Africa needs climate finance that is accessible, predictable and free from burdensome barriers – and that will be on the table at the Addis summit.

But there is another problem - mounting debt that is forcing many African countries to divert resources away from critical priorities, including climate action.

Unless we confront the debt crisis head-on, efforts to finance Africa’s climate ambitions will continue to fall short.

This year's summit builds on the momentum of the first Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi in 2023, where leaders adopted the Nairobi Declaration.

Central to the declaration was the demand to overhaul the global financial system and ease Africa’s crushing debt burden. It proposed “debt pause clauses” and new tools to prevent default, including extended maturities and long grace periods.

These were not merely economic asks; they were lifelines for climate resilience.

Broken global system

Africa currently spends nearly three times more on servicing external debt than it receives in climate finance.

This staggering imbalance is choking our ability to respond to droughts, unpredictable rainfall patterns, desert locusts and floods. These are not future threats; they are current realities, crippling livelihoods from the Sahel to the Horn.

The contradiction is clear.

African nations are stepping up with ambitious green plans and climate commitments, yet we are denied the fiscal space to implement them.

As we pay for loss and damage and finance climate adaptation, we cut education budgets. Even as we promote climate-smart agriculture, we struggle to feed our people. This is not due to a lack of will or capacity, it is due to the broken global financial architecture.

Recent data paints a dire picture: Six of the nine low-income countries globally in debt distress are African.

Half of the 26 countries at high risk of distress are African too. This is not merely a financial issue. It is a development emergency and a moral imperative.

‘Perverse' financial flows

I work on food security and I see these connections every day.

Climate shocks, made worse by poor debt governance, are decimating food systems. Rising global food prices and reliance on imports have left many sub-Saharan African countries dangerously exposed.

According to the United Nations, nearly 60% of the projected 512 million chronically undernourished people in 2030 will live in Africa.

Let me be clear: this is not the same crisis we faced in the early 2000s, when the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative offered temporary relief. Today’s crisis is deeper.

While public debt levels may appear lower, debt servicing costs are historically high, driven by soaring interest rates.

And the financial flows are perversely reversed; according to the African Development Bank, more money is flowing out of African economies than coming in.

Multilateral institutions, meant to be lenders for development, are now being used to bail out private creditors and the countries responsible for climate change are giving affected countries climate finance in the form of market rate loans.

It is therefore encouraging that, for the first time, the African Union convened a continental conference on debt in May, producing a joint declaration that demands real reform.

Among the proposals: the establishment of a U.N. Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt; a debt sustainability analysis that accounts better for climate risks and investment needs; and a global debt registry to promote transparency.

At the upcoming G20 and COP30 meetings, Africa must speak with one voice.

This is where the African Leaders Debt Relief Initiative (ALDRI), of which I am proud to be a founding member, steps in.

Along with the Jubilee Commission, we are calling for large-scale debt relief for highly indebted countries, and a structural shift in how the cost of capital is determined for African borrowers.

Our goal is simple: ensure African countries can invest in their people and their climate goals, not just repay loans.

But we cannot wait for perfection. In the short term, we need action - no more delays, no more negotiations, no more footnotes. Every dollar spent servicing debt is a dollar not spent on adaptation, education, or feeding our children.

We must leave Addis Ababa not just with declarations, but with commitments, frameworks, and partnerships that will shift power and resources toward Africa’s climate and development priorities.

Because climate justice for Africa will never be achieved without debt justice. And neither is possible without African leadership, unity, and bold action.