More than 50 of the poorest developing countries are in danger of defaulting on their debt and becoming effectively bankrupt, the head of the UN Development Programme has warned, The Guardian reported.

Inflation, the energy crisis, and rising interest rates are creating conditions where an increasing number of countries are in danger of default, according to Achim Steiner, the UN’s global development chief.

“There are currently 54 countries on our list [of those likely to default] and if we have more shocks—interest rates go up further, borrowing becomes more expensive, energy prices, food prices—it becomes almost inevitable that we will see a number of these economies unable to pay,” he said.

“And that creates a catastrophic scenario,” Steiner added.

Speaking at the Cop27 UN climate summit, he warned that without measures to help them with debt, these poor countries could not get to grips with the climate crisis.

“The issue of debt has now become such a big problem for so many developing economies that dealing with the debt crisis becomes a precondition for actually accelerating climate action,” Achim Steiner said.