Climate debt-trap risks pushing vulnerable emerging markets to brink

Rising global borrowing costs are denting the finances of some of the most climate-vulnerable countries right when they most need money to fight the devastating impacts of global warming. 

It’s a convergence of events that risks pushing developing nations into a “debt trap,” according to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan, who addressed world leaders at the COP27 climate talks in Egypt last week. Countries that borrowed heavily when interest rates were low are now struggling to fund projects that would make them more resilient to extreme weather, leaving them vulnerable to even higher borrowing costs in the future.

Pakistan,