What if there was a magic bullet to address the climate crisis, the pandemic-induced debt crunch, and the need to boost development finance all at once?
It certainly is attractive to try to tackle these issues jointly, because we already need to mobilize climate finance from rich countries (the main polluters) to support low-income countries (who will bear a disproportionately large burden from climate change).
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said that “major economies do have a special duty to the least developed and most vulnerable countries.” Meanwhile, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva says that “it makes sense” to seek to address debt pressures and the climate crisis jointly. The idea is to arrange “green debt swaps.”