Summit fails to deliver on climate crisis finance

Poorer countries struggling with a growing debt crisis were thrown a lifeline at a global finance summit in Paris last week but the plans still fell short of the debt forgiveness programme that some had hoped for.

- Fiona Harvey

Progress was made on reforms that would help address the climate emergency, as nearly 40 world leaders and the heads of global institutions met for the summit.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, called for global taxes on shipping, aviation and potentially on wealth in order to fund climate action. "Help us find all the countries which today have no tax on financial transactions and which today have no tax on plane tickets. Help us to mobilise at the International Maritime Organization [meeting to discuss a shipping tax] in July so that there is international taxation," he told French broadcast journalists.

Janet Yellen, the US treasury secretary, signalled that the Biden administration would consider the shipping tax, though she stopped well short of endorsing it.