Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley has reiterated the urgency for less talk and more action in confronting the debilitating effects of climate change on vulnerable countries.
Ms. Mottley recently made a strident call to action in tackling climate change issues before world leaders during her recent presentation at the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP 27) Climate Change Conference in Cairo, Egypt,
She proposed the establishment of a climate mitigation trust that would unlock five trillion [dollars] of private sector funding, badly needed to assist the Caribbean in its climate mitigation efforts.
Ms. Mottley said: “We have come here to ask us to open our minds to different possibilities. We believe that we have a plan. We believe that there can be the establishment of a climate mitigation trust that unlocks $5 trillion of private sector savings if we can summon the will to use $500 billion of Special Drawing Rights in a way that unlocks private sector capital.”
The Prime Minister also stressed the importance of a loss and damage fund emphasising that for it to work effectively, non-state actors, oil companies and those who facilitated them, must engage in a special convocation before COP 28.
“How do companies make $200 billion dollars in profits in the last three months and expect to contribute at least 10 cents in every dollar of profit to a loss and damage fund? This is what our people expect and I ask as we reflect on what a loss and damage fund can look like, and who can access it, that we convene a special convocation that doesn’t only involve state parties, but non-state actors such as the same companies,” Ms. Mottley proffered.
She also put up a strong argument for the inclusion of natural disaster and pandemic clauses in debt instruments. She contended that Barbados was a country with high ambitions that was stymied by “fault lines” in the global strategy on account of the country’s inability to access electric vehicles, batteries and photovoltaic panels due to market dominance by the global north.
The Prime Minister reminded the audience that they had the capacity to transform the situation but it required the “simple political will”.
Emphasising it was not just about making promises, Ms. Mottley said it was also necessary to deliver on them and make a definable difference “in the lives of people who we have a responsibility to serve”.