This workshop is a one-day event designed as an active co-learning space, with a strong emphasis on discussion, inquiry, and reflection. Participants are expected to do some preliminary reading and work before the workshop.
Workshop Programme
All rooms are on the Lower Ground Floor of the
Time
Session
9.30am - 10am
Arrivals and Registration Council Chamber
10am - 10.15am
Introductions, Opening and Framing
Council Chamber
Chair: , Policy Officer, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and Technical Advisor, Klima Centre, Manila Observatory
10.15am - 11.15am
Plenary Panel: Unpacking the International Architecture for Financing Climate Action
Council Chamber
, Reader in Economics, SOAS London (Presentation )
, Head of Research and Policy, Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative
, Asia Regional Director for Research and Policy, International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs) and Research Associate, SOAS London
Chair: , Research and Policy Consultant, Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative and PhD Candidate, Department of International Development, University of Oxford
11.15am - 11.30am
Break
11.30am - 12.30pm
Breakout 1: Critical 鈥楿npacking鈥�: The Political Economy of 鈥楪reen鈥� Finance
Participants will be allocated to one of the three breakout sessions (before and after lunch) based on their indicated interest. These breakout sessions are designed to take a narrower focus than the plenary but remain focused on the political economy dynamics and technicalities of 鈥榞reen鈥� financial instruments.
Please see the descriptions of the sessions below and select one to attend. We ask to keep with the same breakout group throughout the day.
Council Chamber
Countries in the global south are caught in a climate-debt trap, shouldering an already high public debt burden while climate shocks they least responsible for further deplete their resources and force them to borrow more expensively to recover and reconstruct their societies and economies. The resulting costly debt service obligations crowd out the public expenditure needed to fund climate action and other sustainable development needs. These two sessions aim to provide an overview of the intersections between sovereign debt and the climate crisis and examine the structural legal and political economy dynamics that underpin the climate-debt trap.
The first session will provide an overview of sovereign debt landscape and the interlinkages between debt and climate challenges, including the historical and contemporary roots of the sovereign debt crisis in developing countries and the challenges of the current international sovereign debt architecture. The second session will examine some of the instruments that have been proposed to deal with climate-debt 鈥� debt swaps, climate debt pause clauses, guarantees and 鈥榞reen鈥� debt instruments 鈥� and consider their effectiveness in addressing the climate-debt trap.
Facilitators:
, Asia Regional Director for Research and Policy, International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs) and Research Associate, SOAS London (Presentation)
Aboneaaj, R, Estes, J and Landers, C (2022),, 11 October 2022, Center for Global Development.
Park, Stephen and Samples, Tim (2024), , American Business Law Journal, Vol 61, No 4 (Open Access Version on SSRN).
UNCTAD (2022), Staying Afloat: , Background Note for the COP27 High-Level Event Series, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
Watch:
CFAA-CAPE (2022), (CFFA-CAPE)
WRI (2023), , World Resources Institute (WRI)
L102
Carbon pricing and trading has emerged as a potentially powerful, yet certainly controversial market-based mechanism to facilitate emissions reductions in the global economy. On the one hand, direct carbon pricing covers nearly a third of all global greenhouse gas emissions, yet carbon markets are still often accused delaying direct attempts to decommission sources of emissions. These two sessions seek to unpack this debate, explore how these markets are established and maintained in different parts of the world, and equip participants with the tools to analyse carbon and nature markets in normative terms.
In the first session, we will examine the rationale for marketising carbon and nature, investigate the different types of market that operate for carbon and nature, and explore how prices and credits are generated. Finally, this session will critically evaluate the role of different actors and institutions in the marketisation of carbon and nature. In the second session, we will be discussing how carbon offsetting projects function and how they 鈥檚ee鈥� the natural world. We will put our project developer hats on and design the ideal profitable carbon plantation and reflect on what this means for human-nature relations and just transitions.
Facilitators:
Will Lock, Assistant Professor in Anthropology and International Development, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex (Presentation)
, Assistant Professor in Economic Geography, School of Geography, University of Nottingham (Presentation)
Prepare for Our Session:
Read:
Bryant, Garth and Weber, Sophie (2024), , Agenda Publishing, pp 61 鈥� 68.
Climate Home News (2020), , 11 December 2020 (Updated 2025), Climate Home News.
Hache, Frederic (2026), , Third World Network and Green Finance Observatory.
Watch:
Last Week Tonight (2022),
L101
As financial actors have become more concerned about the risks posed by climate change, new industries have grown up around the measurement and definition of climate- related risks that can be insured against, or 鈥榙e-risked鈥� through various financial innovations. But how do we understand the myriad of 鈥榬isks鈥� under a changing climate? Where do climate risks come from? Where do risks 鈥榞o鈥� when they are mitigated or 鈥榙e-risked鈥�? And who gets left holding the risk that remain?
In the first session, we examine how uncertainty about climate change gets mapped onto new categories of risk, which are then managed through instruments such as guarantees, blended finance and other models for mobilising funds. In the second session, we focus on the specific technique of disaster risk financing in postcolonial Caribbean islands as a case study. We trace how hurricane risks that are part of the everyday life get managed through insurance, and the socio-political effects this has on people, livelihood, and how we understand climate catastrophes.
Facilitators:
, Reader in Development, Justice and Inequality, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex (Presentation)
, Research and Policy Consultant, Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative and PhD Candidate, Department of International Development, University of Oxford
Prepare for Our Session:
Read:
Adaptation and Resilience Investors Collaborative (ARIC) (2024), , April 2024, ARIC.
Sial, Farwa. (2024). , February 2024, European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad)
Watch:
Bloomberg (2025),
12.30pm - 1.30pm
Lunch
L103/104
1.30pm - 2.30pm
Breakout 2: Critical 鈥楿npacking鈥�: The Technicalities of 鈥楪reen鈥� Finance
Participants will be allocated to one of the three breakout sessions (before and after lunch) based on their indicated interest. These breakout sessions are designed to take a narrower focus than the plenary but remain focused on the political economy dynamics and technicalities of 鈥榞reen鈥� financial instruments.
Please see breakout group description above.
Session A2: Debt and Climate Dynamics: Council Chamber
