Some are struggling to pay for basic social costs due to crippling debt repayment, Caritas says.

Caritas spokesperson Tony Sutorius says worsening cyclones and flooding have created severe financial burdens.

"Climate damage leads to debt and that has the potential to turn into a huge debt spiral that could be really damaging to the integrity and sovereignty of emerging nations" he says.

"In the past, we would think of development aid perhaps in terms of grey aeroplanes arriving and sacks of things being taken out and given to people, but increasingly nowadays you're more likely to get an aeroplane full of bankers who are offering loans rather than actually giving grants."

Basic services impacted

Every country is uniquely impacted by climate change, debt and social needs.

"To use Fiji as an example, it has got to the stage now where the debt is approaching 90 per cent of GDP, which is a very high amount" says Sutorius.

"What that means in practice is that around 15 per cent of the total government spending every year is just paying the interest on the debt, and that's recognized internationally as a real danger threshold."

A concern he has is that some Pacific nations may seek quick fixes to debt at the cost of long-term sustainability.

"One of the risks that Pacific countries face is that they are tempted by this cash crunch of having to pay these big loans into unsustainable mining, for example, or extractive industries where they see a kind of a golden hope of being able to dig their way out, literally."

Debt and climate disaster

Debt and climate disasters are connected and are critical considerations in countries vulnerable to climate change, says Soane Mafi Bishop, president of Caritas Oceania and Cardinal of Tonga and Niue.

"Governments are paying more in interest and other debt servicing obligations than they are on health, education or climate adaptation.

"Action must be taken to forgive debt and prevent it in the future" he stresses.

But Sutorius notes climate grants from rich countries are increasingly turning into climate loans. He also notes that, where debt used to be made on a country-to-country basis and allowed some friendly concessions, today's loans come mostly from the private sector.

Wealthy nations fall short

A report from Caritas Oceania and Australia groups, including the Jubilee Australia Research Centre, criticises wealthier nations for offering poorer Pacific nations loans instead of grants.

It's also critical of members of the (just finished) COP29 UN climate conference which failed to meet its finance goals by a margin of a trillion dollars.

Of that goal, just $300 billion was committed to help vulnerable nations, particularly those in the Pacific.

Source

• Cartias Australia

In a statement on Friday, the Pacific Elders Voice group, which includes former leaders of the Marshall Islands, Palau, Kiribati and Tuvalu, said that "the primary security threat to the Pacific is climate change," rather than geo-strategic tensions.

The former President of Kiribati, Anote Tong, says Pacific leaders are being ignored due to concerns over China's influence in the region.

Tong, a member of the Elders Voice, said the issue of climate security is receiving less attention because major powers are interested in "their own rivalries".

He said the recent China-Solomon Islands security pact has prompted uproar from America, Australia and New Zealand. However, Tong said Pacific leaders have been "screaming that climate change" is the region's highest priority.

"I don't think we have been heard. I suspect that there are countries who do not believe that climate change is as relevant to them as their own rivalries in terms of the powers that they deal with.

"I think it is important to make that point that here we are, we are part of the discussions and that whatever we do with other partners is regarded as impinging on the wider security issues of the region," he said.

The former Pacific leaders group voiced concerns that major powers including the US, Australia and Japan were developing policies for the region without consulting Pacific leaders. It said: "The security and future of the Pacific must be determined primarily by Pacific Island countries and not by external powers competing over strategic interests within our region."

Tong said the Pacific needs to be included in the decision-making processes even if they don't have any significant input.

"And I think it's a bit interesting that all of the security discussions are going on around us and not with us. That is the question we are raising, should we not be part of the discussions in many ways," he said.

Sources

RNZ

Island Times

The Korea Herald