8 Articles by:
Heidi Chow is the Executive Director of Jubilee Debt Campaign.
The proposal from today’s Paris finance summit to tackle the climate crisis through more loans to indebted countries will only harm the Global South – exposing the reality of an economic system built to suit the West.
Pakistan causes less than 1% of global carbon emissions, but a third of it is now underwater – and rebuilding is going to be hamstrung by its $12.5 billion in debt repayments due this year alone. That debt should be cancelled.
Ukraine is set to repay $7.3 billion this year alone in foreign debt. If Western governments were serious about helping people in the midst of a devastating war, they would push for those debts to be cancelled.
The vicious spiral of global debt leaves countries at the front line of the climate crisis unable to respond to its fallout – and the failure of the world’s richest countries to lift the burden exposes their climate hypocrisy.
Covid-19 vaccines should be mass produced and made available to the whole world – but because of the pharmaceutical industry and its patents, private profit and not public health will determine the rollout.
80% of Pfizer vaccine stocks have been bought by countries representing just 14% of the world’s population. The power of Big Pharma and the wealth of the developed world threatens the global fight against Covid-19.
With a coronavirus vaccine on the horizon, it’s time for governments to ensure that public investment in research results in rewards for public health – not obscene profits for Big Pharma.
In the UK and across the world Big Pharma is ripping off public health systems and denying patients vital medicines. This week, Labour showed there is an alternative.