Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley Calls for Accelerated Global Efforts to Support Small Island Developing States in Climate Change Adaptation

Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley is urging United Nations (UN) member states to “press gas” on efforts to help Barbados and other small island developing states (SIDS) finance their adaptation to the “horrifying” reality of climate change.

She said while there was progress, there was insufficient “speed and scope”, lamenting “it is geopolitics and national politics that is blocking progress in this world”.

Mottley voiced her concerns last Tuesday in Antigua while delivering Barbados’ national statement at the UN’s Fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States.

“The frequency and scale of natural disasters causing human suffering, loss or compromised livelihoods, irreparable physical damage, and high economic costs are now regrettably a horrifying global reality,” the Prime Minister said.

“The chasm between United Nations member states spoken commitment and finance implementation condemns us and contradicts our . . . seriousness and sincerity. Our people will wonder what are we really doing when they look at this season of superlatives that is causing the untold damage that it is.”

Mottley said there was already a roadmap, which included the Barbados-led Bridgetown Initiative to remake the global financial system, “on how the international community can support the correction of the economic balance sheet of SIDS”.

She submitted, however, that “we must build a more responsive, fairer and more inclusive global financial system and we must do so with pace and with scope, speed and scope are exactly what is missing from our agenda. Not that we haven’t made progress, but insufficient progress”.

“You cannot treat a country that is on the verge of sinking with less than 200 000 people in the same way that you treat a country that has 30 million people with great resources. A climatic event for us is likely to be a whole-of-country event, and therefore likely to go at the core of our sovereignty and our capacity to survive,” she warned.

“The notion that we can continue to talk and talk and talk without establishing the framework for what will create a platform for hope is what is missing. It is geopolitics and national politics that is blocking progress in this world and until we recognise that to fight the climate, we need all countries irrespective of their geopolitics, irrespective of their national politics, we will be at risk of losing regrettably too many people whose lives should not be lost at the foot of this climate crisis,” Mottley added.