In June 2023, the Power Our Planet campaign launched with a concert in Paris and a rallying call galvanizing global support for financial reforms to help low-income countries adapt and respond to the climate crisis. The campaign sought to help unlock billions of dollars in economic resources and development for Africa and other regions of the world that are the most disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change. 

The event featured performances by world-renowned artists such as Billie Eilish, Jon Batiste, H.E.R., Jack Harlow, and Lenny Kravitz, was attended by influential leaders from across the Global North and South, and drew a crowd of over twenty thousand people looking to make a difference and reimagine our global financial architecture so that it works for people and the planet. 

The concert was held on the sidelines of French President Macron’s New Global Financial Pact Summit, which sought to spark greater investment for development and climate solutions. Its key objective was to lay the foundation for a new, fairer financial system so that “no country has to choose between reducing poverty, combating climate change and preserving biodiversity.”  

A Landmark Announcement for Debt Relief

During the event, Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank, made a groundbreaking announcement alongside Mia Mottley, the Prime Minister of Barbados and Co-Chair of the Power Our Planet campaign. 

Banga revealed a significant policy shift at the World Bank: the introduction of debt-pause clauses to support countries in debt who’ve been impacted by natural disasters. With this announcement, the World Bank joins other multilateral development banks and private institutions that have adopted similar policies. 

This innovative financial mechanism is deceptively simple: it allows eligible, disaster-hit countries to suspend all debt repayments and related interest on their outstanding loans for up to two years, providing much-needed breathing room in their budgets to focus on recovery efforts in the wake of an emergency. 

Banga credited global citizens and leaders of vulnerable nations like Mottley for using their voice to drive this change forward, emphasizing that countries in fragile states should not have to worry about their debt payments while grappling with climate-induced natural disasters. Initially, this policy was granted to 12 countries, but the World Bank has since expanded eligibility to 45 countries, potentially freeing up $9.5 billion annually for the world's most vulnerable nations. While the World Bank still has yet to enact this kind of pause on one of its own loans, doing so in the future will grant temporary relief to countries so that they can invest in more resilient economies and avoid the vicious cycle of debt incurred from natural disasters. 

In August, 2024, Grenada made history as the first country in the world to activate a debt pause, enabling it to postpone its debt repayments to several private creditors in the wake of Hurricane Beryl, which caused damage equivalent to a third of the country’s annual economic output. The move will save Grenada about $30 million in payments over the coming year, allowing it to instead use those funds for immediate recovery efforts and to maintain essential services people rely on.

Building a Global Coalition

This success of the Power Our Planet campaign is rooted in its broad coalition of supporters, which consists of climate activists, philanthropic foundations, nonprofit organizations, and private sector leaders. Notable figures such as Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, Rajiv Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation, and Ban Ki-Moon, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, all showed their support by attending the concert in Paris.

Other notable campaign supporters included world leaders like Emmanuel Macron, President of France, Julius Maada Bio, President of Sierra Leone, Pedro Sánchez, Prime Minister of Spain, and José Ramos-Horta, President of Timor Leste. Together, this range of voices indicates the widespread support that exists to update the global financial system so that it better serves the needs of all the world’s countries, no matter their income level. 

Reforming Global Finance

The Power Our Planet campaign's progress over the past year marks a significant step forward in nudging the global financial system in the direction of serving all nations of the globe. The ultimate aim should be to create a system that enables low-income countries to access the financing they need to lift their citizens out of extreme poverty and supports the global green transition in a way that’s just and fair.

This will require sustained pressure on those in power, and the governments that are the largest shareholders of institutions such as the World Bank, to push for further reforms. While debt-pause clauses are significant, there is much more work to be done in enabling sustainable development and climate resilience. The introduction of debt-pause clauses is just the beginning. There is still an urgent need to expand their scope to cover other crises and ensure they also apply to the poorest countries, not just to small island developing states. Famine, drought, conflict, and economic shocks can be just as crippling as hurricanes or floods, yet current debt relief measures do not account for these realities. To truly help countries facing overlapping crises, this policy should evolve even further to provide comprehensive relief against multiple types of disasters. 

Looking Ahead

As we celebrate what Global Citizens and the Power Our Planet campaign have accomplished, we’re also looking ahead. Power Our Planet proved that we can influence systematic changes that allow vulnerable and poor nations to face the challenges of the future. It may sound ambitious, but the progress made so far demonstrates that with collective effort, transformative change is possible.