BARBADOS | PM Mottley launches searing attack on industrialised nations at Cop27 climate talks

Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley has criticised industrialised nations for failing the developing world on the climate crisis. In a searing attack at the Cop27 UN climate talks Mottley  said the prosperity of the rich world had been achieved at the expense of the poor in times past, and now the poor were being forced to pay again, as victims of climate breakdown that they did not cause.

“We were the ones whose blood, sweat and tears financed the industrial revolution,” she said. “Are we now to face double jeopardy by having to pay the cost as a result of those greenhouse gases from the industrial revolution? That is fundamentally unfair.”

The Barbadian Prime Minister who joined world leaders in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt for the 27th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – COP27, warned of a billion climate refugees around the world by the middle of the century if governments failed to tackle the climate crisis.

Mia Mottley is amazing and this is 100% on the money.https://t.co/Ln2qkCoVNY

— Air Adam (@airadam13) November 8, 2022

One of the biggest issues at the talks is climate justice – the fact that poor people are bearing the brunt of the damage to the climate, in the form of extreme weather, while rich countries have failed to live up to their promises to cut emissions and to provide finance to help the poor with climate breakdown.

Mottley, who was speaking at an event organised by Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, was scathing about the World Bank, which many countries think has not done enough to focus on the climate, and on countries that offer loans instead of grants.

“We need to have a different approach, to allow grant-funded reconstruction grants going forward, in those countries that suffer from disaster. Unless that happens, we are going to see an increase in climate refugees. We know that by 2050, the world’s 21 million climate refugees today will become 1 billion.”

This.

"We are in the country that built pyramids." Barbados PM Mia Mottley slams inaction on the climate crisis at #COP27. @miaamormottley pic.twitter.com/54SopfR1YO

— Greenpeace Africa (@Greenpeaceafric) November 7, 2022

"I come from a small island state that has high ambitions but is not able to deliver on that high ambition because the global industrial strategy that we have fault lines in it our ability to access electric cars or ability to access batteries or photovoltaic panels are constrained by those countries that have the dominant presence and can produce for themselves but the global south remains at the mercy of the global north on these issues,” Mottley said.

She references a speech by former Vice President of the United States Al Gore, which highlighted the difference in the cost of capital to those in the global south and global north. As such, she questioned how many more people must speak out before those who have the capacity to instruct the directors at the World Bank to regulate the issue – actually does so.

Mottley said that the world looks still like it did when it was part of an imperialistic empire as the global north borrows between interest rates of 1 to 4% while the global south is faced with 14%.  To this end she said, “And then we wonder why the just energy partnerships are not working.”

The Barbados Prime Minister questioned, “How many more countries must falter particularly in a world that is suffering the consequences of war and inflation and countries are therefore unable to meet the challenges of finding the necessary resources to finance their way to net zero.”

She then pointed out that if countries that want to do the right thing and finance their way to net-zero is unable to get the critical supplies, in-turn those countries will have to rely again on natural gas.

“This is the ball reality and we have come here to ask us to open our minds to different possibilities. We believe that we have a plan, we believe that they can be the establishment of a climate mitigation trust that unlocks $5 trillion dollars of private sector savings if we can summon the will to use the SDRs (Special Drawing Rights) $500 billion of SDRs…in a way that unlocks the private sector capital.”

The SDRs is an international reserve asset, created by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1969 to supplement its member countries’ official reserves. To date, a total of SDR $660.7 billion (equivalent to about US$943 billion) have been allocated.

The Prime Minister noted that in order to use the SDRs, it requires a change in the attitude of congress. She explained that the agreement that establish the IMF requires 85% to change that agreement and pointed out that the United States of America (USA) holds 17%.

Barbados PM Mia Mottley makes plea to rich nations at COP27 https://t.co/dIgAdglfNI

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) November 8, 2022

“Similarly, we accept that there was and must be a commitment to unlocking concessional funding for climate vulnerable countries. There is no way that developing countries who have been graduated can fight this battle without access to concessional funding,” Mottley said.

Mottley also stated that she believes that it is critical to address the issue of ‘Loss and Damage.’  Loss and Damage is the term used broadly refers to efforts to avert, minimise and address loss and damage associated with climate change impacts, especially in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.

The Prime Minister explained, that in order for the ‘Loss and Damage’ to work, it cannot only be the issue of asking the Heads-of-State to do the right thing.  She said, “We believe the non-state actors and stakeholders, oil and gas companies and those who facilitate them, needs to be brought for a special convocation between now and COP28.”

Mottley highlighted that how can companies that made $200B in profits within the last three months not expect to contribute at least 10 cents on every dollar of profit to a ‘Loss and Damage’ fund. The Prime Minister said too that she believes that the time has come for the introduction of, “a natural disaster and pandemic clauses in our debt instruments.”

Mottley said it was time to revisit the Bretton Woods convention in order to have a majort reorganization and reform of the international financial Institutions:“Yes it is time for us to revisit Bretton Woods. Yes, it is time for us to remember that those countries, who sit in this room today, did not exist at the time when the Bretton Woods institutions were formed for the most part. And therefore we have not seen we have not been heard sufficiently and if we are therefore to rise to the occasion to play our part to stop the tragic loss of life…then there needs to be a new deal with respect to the Bretton Woods institutions and we need to ensure that they have a different view to their risk appetite, that we look at the SDRs and we look at other innovative ways to expand the lending that is available…”

The Bretton Woods Institutions are the World Bank and the IMF. They were set up at a meeting of 43 countries in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, USA in July 1944. Their aims were to help rebuild the shattered postwar economy and to promote international economic cooperation.

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