This is Pang from the Philippines, speaking on behalf of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

If you sense frustration in my voice, it is because I am trying to quell the raging anger of the communities from the Global South that I represent. The brunt of climate impacts is disproportionately borne by women, children, young, gender-non-conforming people, Indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, and small food producers in the Global South. But let us address the elephant in the room – this crisis was NOT caused by those who are suffering most but by an elite few governments and corporations. One Global North country, for example, has emitted more than any other nation on the planet since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

For years, the Global North has made lofty promises to finance climate adaptation, yet delivered little more than empty words. Now, they want to involve the private sector to offer loans instead of fulfilling THEIR obligations. Let me be clear: the private sector will not save us. It will not rebuild our homes after disasters or shelter those displaced by floods. Its goal is profit, not paying the climate debt owed to us. We reject the claim that public finance is unavailable—$16 trillion was mobilized for public COVID stimulus in 2020. Surely, a fraction of that can be raised for an existential crisis threatening billions.

It’s time to expose the Global North. They continue to make promises but avoid concrete commitments, refusing to talk about numbers. When they do engage, they hide behind financial instruments that delay action and shift the burden to the Global South.

Centuries of colonization, exploitation, and extraction of the Global North from our communities is the REASON for the climate crisis. So the time has come for you to pay the climate debt YOU OWE. We DEMAND climate finance of AT LEAST $5 TRILLION/YEAR as partial payment – part of this will enable the Global South to adapt to a new apocalyptic reality that we did not cause and will go to Adaptation Finance – but it will also be used to phase out fossil fuels, build resilience, ensure a just transition of energy and food systems, and pay for losses and damages. 

Every dollar you fail to provide for adaptation today will cost 10 times more in losses and damages tomorrow. And the blood of those losses will be on YOUR hands. WE ARE FED UP with your excuses. Global North, Pay Up $5 trillion NOW!