Change Initiative r e c e n t l y 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 naturalresource 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.