Why debt relief is more important than ever for climate and nature justice. CIDSE Policy Brief, June 2025
Authors: CAFOD, KOO, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, SCIAF, and Caritas Zambia.
Jubilee 2025 could mark a turning point in history. The Catholic Church is leading the Jubilee revival by calling for fundamental reforms to the international financial architecture, necessary to tackle the interconnected systemic crises of unsustainable and unjust debt and climate change.
It is in this context that CIDSE has published a new policy brief endorsed by over 80 faith leaders and faith-based organisations worldwide. The document calls on governments and international institutions to deliver urgent debt relief and implement far-reaching reforms to the global financial system, to finally free the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis.
Content:
- What is a Jubilee year?
- Why is debt important to the climate debate?
- What are the stakes for the Global South?
- What needs to change?
| Policy demands: – A proper plan for much more grant-based climate finance – Fix the broken debt system – An end to harmful conditionality – Avoid debt-for-climate swaps |
“Debt relief is not only economic justice; it is the restoration of humanity’s rightful hope for a sustainable future. Debt relief is an act of justice that rescues dignity, heals poverty, and restores hope for lasting climate resilience and ecological harmony”. Edmond Kangamungazi, Caritas Zambia.
Additional information:
“New CIDSE Policy Brief Calls for Debt Relief as Cornerstone of Climate Justice“, CIDSE press release, 3 June 2025.
Contacts:
CIDSE: Lydia Machaka, Energy and Extractivism Officer (machaka(at)cidse.org)
CAFOD: Liz Cronin, Climate Policy Lead, (lcronin(at)cafod.org.uk)
Cover image: COP29 Baku protest. Credit UN Climate Change – Habib Samadov.