Debt for climate and green power

India's climate targets are not conditional, but its negotiating position has been that finance and technology must be made available to developing countries

South Africa’s Deputy Finance Minister David Masondo floated an interesting idea recently. He suggested investors forgive some $10 billion of the country’s sovereign debt in exchange for the country’s national power utility, Eskom Holdings, going greener. “High levels of indebtedness can hold up what is urgently needed — an acceleration of the energy transition,” Masondo said last month. Such a deal in South Africa would create “a blueprint for other transitioning middle-income, coal-dependent economies,” Bloomberg News reported him saying. 

There are concerns about the repercussions of such a debt-for-climate plan, which he insisted does not imply a haircut for creditors.