We, the Asian movements of the Global South, are done watching in silence as our people suffer under the weight of crises we did not create.
From collapsing ecosystems to collapsing economies, our communities have been battered by a storm of climate chaos, debt distress, deepening inequality, and systemic exploitation. These crises are the direct result of a global economic system built to extract from our lands, our people, our futures—so the rich and powerful can thrive off our suffering.
At the heart of this rigged system lies the Financing for Development (FfD) process, which was created to ensure fair and just financing for development and climate action—especially for the Global South. Instead, it has become another space for the Global North to rewrite the rules to protect their power, shirk their responsibilities, and advance false solutions.
Their hypocrisy is most glaring when it comes to climate finance. In the zero draft, the Global North governments tried to bury climate finance in a single paragraph alongside biodiversity and ecosystems. This wasn’t a mistake. It was a calculated move to weaken respective mandates and cover up double and multiple counting of the same funds.
The G77 stood its ground, fighting to defend the integrity of climate finance bound by legal obligations of the UNFCCC and its Paris Agreement. We in the Global South stand with them. We know exactly what is owed by the Global North: public, grant-based, new and additional finance. Not recycled loans. Not shady private investments. Real climate finance provided–not merely “mobilized”—as reparations for historical injustice.
Let’s not fall into the climate-debt trap where developing countries are made to borrow more as Global North governments persist in evading their climate finance obligations and as international financial institutions avidly promote more borrowings. Currently, more than 70% of climate finance made available is in the form of loans and other non-grant instruments that add to the debt-burden of the Global South. Major lenders like the IMF and World Bank often attach austerity conditions and other finance and fiscal requirements, such as cutting social spending, privatizing social services, and deregulating the flow of capital – all of which deepen inequality and impoverishment. Each loan adds to the tsunami of a debt already engulfing the Global South. No people, especially those least responsible for the climate crisis should have to choose between repaying debts, and fulfilling basic rights that are key to survival and long-term resilience.
The Global North remains to play dirty. They refuse to acknowledge “new and additional” obligations. They push the deceptive language of “all sources” to deflect responsibility. They twist voluntary South-South cooperation into a cover for their failures. And while they stall, they continue pouring trillions into fossil fuels, militarism, and corporate bailouts—the very systems driving the planetary destruction.
As we enter the next phases of the FfD process, we know exactly what the Global North has in store: more opaque backroom negotiations, more dirty tactics to water down commitments, more deliberate efforts to erase their historical responsibilities and silence the voices of the Global South.
We will not let this pass. We are done playing along.
We are here to expose the Global North—not just for failing to deliver climate finance, but for actively sabotaging it in bad faith. This is no accident. It is a calculated strategy to protect their profits and deny justice to those they have exploited for centuries.
They peddle debt traps instead of cancellation.
They push market-based mechanisms instead of climate justice and genuine international cooperation.
They offer loans laced with conditions instead of reparations owed.
All the while, they hide behind jargon, stall negotiations, and distract us with empty promises—as communities drown, burn, starve, and fight to survive.
We see through every lie. We reject every excuse.
The FfD must not become a shield for the Global North’s betrayal. It must become the site of reckoning to hold the Global North accountable.
Reparations to the Global South!
Deliver Trillions, not millions!
Climate Finance now!
Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD)