As the world prepares for COP30 in Brazil, Caritas Oceania and Caritas Latin America and the Caribbean joined forces for a powerful cross-continental webinar and workshop under the banner of the Turn Debt into Hope campaign.
The event, titled “COP30: Debt as Climate Impact – A strategy workshop on Pacific and Latin America perspectives” brought together leading voices from Chile, Brazil, Australia, and the Pacific. Panellists explored how sovereign debt and climate vulnerability are compounding crises across regions, and how communities can lead the way toward resilience and justice.
The workshop featured speakers including Catherine Mella Quiroz (Caritas Chile), José Oscar Henao Monjem (Caritas Latin America and the Caribbean), Dr Damian Spruce (Caritas Australia), Maia Colodenco (Suramericana Vision and Vatican Jubilee Commission), and Adam Wolfenden (Pacific Network on Globalisation).
The discussions revealed a shared reality: climate disasters - floods, fires, rising seas -are driving governments to borrow heavily, often at unsustainable levels. In turn, debt repayments are forcing cuts to essential services and pushing nations toward risky revenue-generating projects like deep sea mining and monoculture expansion. This vicious cycle is particularly acute in the Pacific, where countries like Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga face high debt servicing ratios that threaten their ability to deliver basic services.
Latin America faces similar challenges, compounded by structural inequalities and extractive economies. Testimonies from Chile and Brazil illustrated how climate events are displacing families, destroying livelihoods, and deepening poverty. Yet, amid these challenges, hope emerged. Caritas Chile showcased a territorial resilience model that empowers communities to plan, prepare, and protect their ecosystems. This model includes risk mapping, community-led emergency planning, and small-scale innovations like water storage and early warning systems.
Speakers also critiqued so-called “innovative” financial solutions - such as green and blue bonds or debt-for-nature swaps. Panellists noted that these mechanisms can be costly to administer and may divert resources away from direct community support. Instead, the workshop called for a shift toward grant-based climate finance, debt cancellation and restructuring mechanisms, and community-led resilience planning.
A recurring theme was the need to move beyond emergency response and toward proactive justice. As Catherine Mella Quiroz noted, “Natural disasters are not natural, they are the result of poor planning and unjust systems.” The workshop emphasised that climate justice must begin with economic justice, and both must be rooted in community agency.
As COP30 approaches, this dialogue sets the stage for bold, justice-driven climate action, with voices from the Pacific and Latin America calling for the centering of communities, fair finance, and the rejection of false solutions. In doing so we can build a future that is resilient, equitable, and rooted in solidarity.
