by Jim Hodgson
“I am infuriated to come home to the aftermath of six typhoons that have struck the Philippines in the space of just four weeks with basically zero gains from COP29,” said Patricia Mungcal, a young climate advocate who serves as humanitarian manager with the National Council of Churches in the Philippines.
“I will be telling thousands of Filipino families who were devastated by these strong typhoons that world leaders have left us to suffer the heaviest impacts of the climate crisis and disregarded our demands for finance and reparations. This failure to address loss and damage is a grave disregard of our human dignity and rights. We charge this failure of COP29 to the moral bankruptcy of the rich, polluting nations.”
At the recent climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, world leaders failed miserably in their response to the climate crisis and its consequences. Of the $1.3 trillion of climate finance that independent experts estimate will be required annually by 2030, the UN climate conference agreed to provide just $300bn every year – by 2035 (Progressive International newsletter, Dec. 3).
Meanwhile, governments around the globe (including Canada) are still ploughing billions of dollars into fossil fuel subsidies to shelter citizens from higher energy costs, but that comes with a fiscal burden and impedes the goal of reducing overall use.
And Philippines had six typhoons. In the Canadian Rockies, Jasper townsite burned—just days after I had written about climate disasters in British Columbia.
What is to be done?
More often now, we are seeing the connection between the climate crisis and the growing indebtedness of the so-called “highly indebted poor countries” (HIPC). And proposals for a new international financial architecture are once again getting attention.
In June, Pope Francis pressed leading economists and world finance ministers to support new mechanisms to ease foreign debt, lamenting that “poorly managed globalization” has deprived millions of people of a “dignified future.”
“Ecological debt and foreign debt are two sides of the same coin that mortgages the future,” the pope said. “For this reason, dear friends, the Holy Year of 2025, to which we are heading, calls us to open our minds and hearts to be able to untie the knots of the ties that strangle the present, without forgetting that we are only custodians and stewards, not masters.”
The focus of this Jubilee Year is gaining ecumenical and inter-faith support. In Canada, KAIROS will lead a Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee campaign, in step with global debt relief efforts. “These are inspired by the Jubilee tradition from the Book of Leviticus. Rooted in faith, Jubilee calls for the release of debts, liberation from servitude, and the return of seized lands—principles that resonate deeply in today’s world,” says KAIROS. This campaign aims to:
- Cancel unjust debts.
- Establish a UN-led mechanism for debt resolution.
- Prevent future cycles of crippling debt.
The 2025 meeting of G7 (leaders of the richest countries) will be held June 15-17 in Kananaskis, Alberta (southwest of Calgary).
A “Manual for Mutiny”
The global Progressive International network, meanwhile, is presenting a Program of Action on the Construction of a New International Economic Order. It speaks of a “polycrisis”—the combination of the “old crises of debt, dependency and under-development” combined now with “an accelerating crisis of climate to threaten not only the developmental prospects of the South—but also, in the case of many small island states, their very existence.”
The Program of Action offers nearly three dozen measures across five broad sections: to leverage the South’s natural wealth, labor power, and collective voice in order to extract concessions from Northern partners; to bolster the sovereign development agenda by building Southern alternatives to Northern institutions; and to pool Southern knowledge, resources, and ingenuity in service of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
To that, I would add: Systemic failure demands system change.
What you can do
Keep an eye on KAIROS, of course, and on Development and Peace-Caritas Canada for ways to get involved in the new Jubilee campaigns.
I also want to share with you some suggestions from Katharine Hayhoe, a Canadian atmospheric scientist whose research focuses on understanding the impacts of climate change on people and the planet.
“For climate action to happen at scale, conversations have to move beyond international summits to what’s happening in our communities, our workplaces, and our organizations. And there, change isn’t something we wait for. It’s something we catalyze,” she wrote after COP29.
She suggests starting conversations “about climate solutions where you work or study. Ask what your organization is already doing, and what more it could do—and share that with people around you, particularly those who can make decisions.”
That will be especially important as Canadians vote in a federal election in 2025, and as one party opts for simplistic slogans over serious conversations about climate policy.
Unwrapping Development 