Anyone thinking seriously about the accelerating climate crisis will know that to address it we have to think about money and power. A recent report found that extreme weather fuelled by the climate crisis has cost some of the world’s poorest countries $156bn over the past two decades, while climate negotiations have been dominated by the unequal struggle to get rich countries to pay up.

As climate campaigners, we don’t always lift the lid on the deeper economic injustice which underlies the need for climate finance - the fact that so many Global South countries are caught in a debt trap, which climate disasters only intensify, and which  is a major barrier to climate action. In this webinar, hosted jointly with Debt for Climate and Debt Justice, we hear from Global South and UK campaigners for debt justice.

This year, 2025, is a Jubilee year, with the biggest global campaign for debt cancellation since the turn of the millennium. From 30 June to 3 July the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) will be held in Seville, the first summit of its kind in over a decade, and reforming the debt system will be on the agenda.

Webinar 4 June 2025: Achieving Climate Justice - Why Debt Matters

Speakers:

Mae Buenaventura works with the Asian Peoples' Movement on Debt & Development, a regional alliance based in the Philippines that focuses on people-centered development, economic and environmental rights and justice as its contribution to social transformation. In particular, she manages the Debt Justice and Green Economic Rebuilding of APMDD, which sustains a long-standing struggle for debt cancellation especially of illegitimate debts.

Tess Woolfenden is a Policy Adviser at Debt Justice, working on the intersection between the debt and climate crises, and on the colonial roots of Global South debt.

Esther Agaja is an organizer with Debt for Climate on their Global Coordination Team, where she works to mobilize grassroots movements and frontline communities, particularly across the Global South to demand the cancellation of unjust debts that hinder real climate action. Resides in Nigeria and deeply committed to climate justice, Esther amplifies the voices of those most impacted by the climate crisis, advocating for total debt cancellation.

Lorraine Inglis is a Global Coordinator at Debt for Climate, a Global South-led campaign demanding the cancellation of colonial debt as a key step toward climate justice. Based in the UK, she works at the intersection of ecological justice and global debt, and has been a climate justice activist for 12 years. She is also the co-founder of the Weald Action Group, which won the landmark climate Supreme Court case in 2024.

Chair: Claire James, Campaign against Climate Change Campaigns Coordinator

Take action

Sign the Jubilee petition

Ahead of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development there are global days of action on 27 & 28 June: The London action is on Saturday 28 June at 12pm. Register here - please do sign up as an individual, just put 'N/A' under 'Organisation'. If you can't make it to London, you could do an action locally. It could be really small, but something that could be shared on social media to show solidarity.

Sign up to join the Climate Coalition mass lobby of MPs on 9 July, and engage with your MP about debt justice. You can sign up to training sessions about lobbying your MP on debt justice on 11 June or 2 July.

Join Debt for Climate

Join Campaign against Climate Change to campaign for climate justice and debt justice in the run up to COP30 in Brazil.

There's more background in our climate justice overview