Change Initiative recently disseminated the Climate Debt Risk Index 2025 (CDRI’25) jointly with Young Power in Social Action (YPSA), finding that loan-dominant climate finance, slow cash delivery, and high exposure to climate shocks are combining to raise debt risks across dozens of low-income and climate-vulnerable countries.
The index covers 55 nations: 13 are rated “very high risk,” 34 “high,” 6 “moderate,” and 2 “low.”
Sahel states and parts of coastal West Africa face frequent disasters, several small island states carry heavy per-capita burdens, and South Asia shows uneven portfolios with large loan shares in some economies.
CDRI’25 integrates finance structure, climate exposure, debt indicators, poverty, income, credit ratings and natural-resource stewardship into a 0-100 score, with 2028/2031 projections using governance trends across 55 countries.
CDRI’25 findings were addressed by Sabrin Sultana and Samira Basher, research analysts of Change Initiative.
