PARIS - Dozens of global leaders will gather in Paris on Thursday for a summit to tease out a new consensus on international economic reforms to help debt-burdened developing countries face a growing onslaught of challenges, particularly climate change.
Economies have been battered by successive shocks in recent years, including Covid-19, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, spiking inflation, debt, and the spiralling cost of weather disasters intensified by global warming. Climate campaigners Greta Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate will be in the French capital, while Billie Eilish will perform at Global Citizen’s “Power Our Planet” concert on Thursday evening, lending star appeal to a macroeconomic niche unused to such a limelight.France says the two-day summit will be a platform for ideas ahead of a cluster of major economic and climate meetings in the coming months.
On Wednesday, the International Energy Agency released a report that said annual investment just for non-fossil fuel energy in these countries will need to jump from US$260 billion to nearly US$2 trillion within a decade.