Barbados prime minister <PERSON>’s defence of Small Island Developing States at COP26 makes her a regional rock star · Global Voices
<PERSON>, prime minister of Barbados, speaking at the 16th Raúl Prebisch Lecture in Geneva, Switzerland, September 10, 2019. Photo by <PERSON>, via UNCTAD on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.
Prime Minister of Barbados <PERSON>'s representation of and advocacy for the Caribbean region at the 2020 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, has captured the attention of world leaders and regional netizens alike.
<PERSON>'s environmental star has been on the rise ever since her address at the United Nations’ Climate Event Summit on September 23, 2019, when she warned of mass migration if the climate crisis was not solved. Similarly, her speech at the opening of the #COP26 World Leaders Summit on November 1 made no attempt to sugar-coat the grim reality that Small Island Developing States (SIDS) like the Caribbean—which are on the frontline of the adverse effects of climate change despite contributing the least to global greenhouse gas emissions—are facing.
She called the failure to provide critical climate finance, which dropped by as much as 25 per cent in 2019, “immoral” and “unjust”:
The pandemic has taught us that national solutions to global problems do not work. We come to Glasgow with global ambition to save our people and to save our planet. But we now find three gaps. On mitigation, climate pledges or NDCs—without more, we will leave the world on a pathway to 2.7 degrees, and with more, we are still likely to get to 2 degrees.
Calling out China and Russia, two major contributors to greenhouse gases that were noticeably absent from the conference, <PERSON> continued:
Do some leaders in this world believe that they can survive and thrive on their own? Have they not learned from the pandemic? Can there be peace and prosperity if one third of the world literally prospers and the other two thirds of the world live under siege and face calamitous threats to our wellbeing? […]
The central banks of the wealthiest countries engaged in $25 trillion of quantitative easing in the last 13 years. […] Of that, $9 trillion was in the last 18 months to fight the pandemic. 941
Had we used that $25 trillion to purchase bonds to finance the energy transition or the transition of how we eat or how we move ourselves in transport, we would now today be reaching that 1.5 degrees limit that is so vital to us. […] An annual increase in the SDRs of $500 billion a year for 20 years, put in a trust to finance the transition, is the real gap […] that we need to close, not the $50 billion being proposed for adaptation. And if $500 billion sounds big to you, guess what? It is just 2 percent of the $25 trillion.
The Barbadian prime minister later told CNN's <PERSON> that countries like hers, which contribute less than a percentage point to global emissions, have been facing the impacts of the climate crisis for some time now: water supply problems, coral reef degradation, saltwater intrusion, and the influx of sargassum, not to mention flooding and hurricanes.
Those who need to make the decisions, she said, “are kicking can down the road—and they believe that they can because they're not seeing us—they see themselves”:
They don't reach that period of peril probably for another 15, 20 years […] four degrees to Shanghai and Miami to be eradicated. Well, it's 1.5 and 2 for us. […]
They're waiting for it to hit them and we really are hoping that […] they'll recognise that no one is safe until everyone is safe—and if the episode with vaccines hasn't shown us that, then we will never learn.
Her stance went over exceptionally well, with many regional netizens applauding her gumption and determination. Her example inspired some to wonder what it would be like if women ruled the world:
THIS… is WHY we NEED you there @miaamormottley #mashupdatrassboysclub pic.twitter.com/EYtrSDPP2m
— <PERSON> (@brownin007) November 3, 2021
Global netizens, meanwhile, expressed a longing to have leaders of the same ilk:
Can we have <PERSON> as our PM? Where are Australia’s inspiring leaders? What a speech. https://t.co/57sGTqX5B2
— <PERSON> (@JaneCaro) November 2, 2021
They weren't the only ones. 142