"LISBON - Portugal plans to swap the entire 140 million euro ($152.91 million) debt it is owed by Cape Verde for investments in the archipelago's environmental and climate fund, Prime Minister Antonio Costa said on Tuesday.
Such "debt-for-nature" swap deals are a way to resolve the dilemma of how and who will foot the bill for actions to "counteract the impact of climate change and to accelerate the transition energy of developing countries," Costa said in a joint address in Lisbon with Cape Verde's Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva to announce the plan.
Cape Verde, an archipelago off Western Africa which was a Portuguese colony, already suffers from rising sea levels and biodiversity loss due to increasing ocean acidity caused by global warming.
The two countries had already agreed in January to swap 12 million euros of debt repayments scheduled until 2025 and then assess the effectiveness of this mechanism in concrete projects."
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