The global energy transition cannot succeed by expanding extraction alone—or by relying on a financial system built around short-term supply security. To achieve a just transition, international public finance must be reoriented toward structural transformation: enabling energy sovereignty, midstream industrial development, and fiscal resilience in producer countries. Tax and debt rules must be restructured, and climate finance must be redefined to reflect access, ownership, and long-term development—not just emissions counting. At the same time, protecting policy space and securing equitable technology access are essential foundations; without them, finance alone will reproduce dependency rather than resilience.

This session will explore how Global South and Global North allies can reshape global financial architecture to:

• Center public finance reform in transition minerals governance;
• Shift climate finance metrics from carbon counting to structural resilience;
• Make tax, debt, and climate justice inseparable pillars of COP30;
• Protect industrial policy space and technology access as foundational rights;
• Institutionalize holistic accountability across all major public finance flows—including Public Investment Banks (PIBs), Export Credit Agencies (ECAs), reinvestment institutions, and blended programs like the Global Gateway—by embedding enforceable standards that both shield communities from social and environmental harm and tie the promise of local benefits to measurable, actionable outcomes.

Key Themes 

• Reorienting Public Finance - Condition DFIs, ECAs, PIBs, and MoUs on building energy production, energy access infrastructure, and midstream industrial capacity—not raw material export corridors.
• Tax and Debt Justice as Enablers- Strengthen tax cooperation, tackle illicit flows, and link sovereign debt restructuring to climate and industrial transition goals.
• Defending Industrial Policy Space-Embed climate carve-outs and ISDS phase-out to safeguard the right to build local clean industries.
• Unlocking Technology Access and Co-Ownership-Condition public finance and MoUs on real technology sharing, licensing flexibility, and joint ventures.
• Building the Accountability Spectrum- Ensure public finance delivers: Accountability for impacts (social, environmental, labor norms + ISDS phase out); Accountability for benefits (energy access, industrial value retention, fiscal gains).
• Shifting the Metrics of Climate Finance-Move beyond emissions counting to structural development metrics: energy access, local clean tech production, fiscal resilience, technology transfer

Forum Agenda Description

The panel will examine how international public finance—without deep restructuring—risks entrenching a new wave of extractivism, draining fiscal capacity, and undermining local industrialization.

Speakers will address:

●    How to redirect Global North-backed finance toward real public goods;
●    Why tax and debt reform are critical preconditions for transition investments;
●    How climate finance must be re-metricked to measure access, ownership, and resilience;
●    Why policy space must be protected from shrinking further under new FTAs, BITs, and ISDS/ICTs;
●    How accountability must be embedded into all international finance mechanisms