Workers till a sugar field shortly after harvesting at Khanyangwane sugarcane project in South Africa's eastern district of Nkomazi.
Photographer: Guillem Sartorio
Debt Crisis Looms for Poorer Nations Most Vulnerable to Climate Change
Governments and businesses are struggling as a rise in extreme weather events coincides with a surge in borrowing costs.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif warned world leaders at the COP27 climate talks last November that developing nations risk falling into a “financial debt trap” if they're forced to turn to the markets to cover the mounting costs of climate change. Six months on, with rates and temperatures rising, his prediction looks prescient.
So far this year cyclones have battered southeast Africa, floods have killed hundreds in Rwanda, Congo and Uganda and the worst drought in four decades parched crops in the Horn of Africa. Record temperatures are currently being recorded across southeast Asia, Cyclone Mocha has just ripped through Bangladesh and Myanmar and agricultural regions have dried up in Argentina.