In Malawi, we are committed to carving a new path and electrifying our people with a renewable future.
Most recently, Parliament passed the Accelerating Sustainable and Clean Energy Access Transformation in Malawi bill into law.
However, our debt levels are untenable and climate finance is essential. Every year, five percent of our gross domestic product is siphoned to address climate losses and damages.
Between March 2020 and March 2024, our public sector debt rose from 48 to 93 percent of our gross domestic product (GDP). Cornered by debt distress, our fiscal space has disappeared.
This story is not uncommon for many other least developed countries nations as we are forced to spend the vast majority of our public funds servicing debt to un-sustainable levels.
We are strapped with the injustice that public debt is growing twice as fast in de-veloping countries than in wealthy nations.
Across Africa, we are the only continent where public debt is growing faster than our GDPs and we face the highest borrowing costs in the world.
As a result, we are cornered into spending more on interest payments and servic-ing debt than on essential public expenditures to power our development visions for our people in climate, health and education. We desperately need to change course.
The Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative proposes to address the debt crisis by testing a new debt resolution facility to support nations to access, renegotiate and broker our debts.
A Fossil Fuel Treaty will aim to channel financial and technical resources to its member countries to help overcome the endemic barriers to transitioning away from fossil fuels, including new forms of green industrial policy, economic diversifi-cation and renewable energy deployment.
As nations on the frontlines of the climate crisis, these are pathways we need now more than ever.
For Malawi and fellow
climate vulnerable nations, the treaty would not only offer an opportunity to tackle the climate crisis driven by fossil fuels head on, with the biggest culprits held accountable, but would also provide a lifeline to our vulner-able communities, boosting renewable energy access, unlocking economic op-portunities and building climate-resilient economies powered by renewables.
As momentum for the Fossil Fuel Treaty grows, it is essential that African nations, including Malawi, are at the table to shape its rules, terms and provisions, ensuring the transition away from fossil fuels is fair, financed and inclusive.
We believe that Malawi has the opportunity to show courage and leadership in advocating for our nation and our continent, to halt the fossil-fueled loss and damage and ensure our voices as the most climate vulnerable are at the fore-front in building a Fossil Fuel Treaty.
The time to act is now.
