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“This is not science fiction, this is our reality,” Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said repeatedly in her world address.
She has spoken out on our climate situation and has become one of the world’s leading voices on the seriousness of this issue, with her words and actions matching hers.
She has set ambitious goals, such as eliminating fossil fuels in Barbados by 2030, and has a vision of installing solar panels on every home on the island. She also has plans to restore coral reefs and plant a million trees.
Mottley is a former barrister, having studied law at the University of London and at the London School of Economics. But politics is very much in her DNA, as her grandfather, Ernest Deighton Mottley, was Bridgetown’s first mayor, who received an honours award on New Year’s Eve 2019, and her uncle (after whom she is named) was a political leader in the Christian Social Democratic Party.
She began her political career in 1991 and was one of the youngest Barbadians to hold a ministerial position at just 29 years of age. She was appointed Minister of Education, Youth and Culture in 1994 (a position she held until 2001) and was elected Secretary General of the Barbados Labour Party in 1996.
Since becoming the country’s eighth prime minister in 2018, Mottley has added several firsts to her name. Not only is she the first woman to lead the country, she is also the first to lead the country since Barbados became a republic in November 2021 (she was the driving force behind that). She is also the first Barbadian to appear on the cover of a magazine. hour magazine.
Beyond these milestones, she has established herself as a visionary leader, quickly becoming known for her eloquent, urgent and powerful speeches after announcing the Bridgetown Initiative at the opening ceremony of the Cop26 Climate Summit in November 2021.
The initiative advocates for poor countries that bear the brunt of the physical and financial impact of the climate crisis but produce the lowest emissions. In 2020, Barbados accounted for less than 0.01% of global emissions.
“We have the means to invest in protecting the most vulnerable people on earth from climate change, but we have chosen not to do so, not because we don’t have enough, but because we are unwilling to distribute what we have,” Motley told the United Nations in September 2021.
She continued, “Our world doesn’t know what it’s gambling on. If we don’t control this fire, it’s going to burn us all,” and asked, quoting Bob Marley, “Who will rise up and stand up for the rights of our people?”
The following year, at Cop27 in Egypt, she told leaders of the world’s richest countries that their failure to do better was a “death sentence” for small island states and developing countries. Independent Previously reported.
To address the lack of action, the Bridgetown Initiative aims to drive global financial reform and rebalance the gap between rich and poor countries in their ability to cope with and adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis.
The movement pushes Barbados to the forefront of addressing inequalities in tackling the climate crisis, a crisis that is rooted in how vulnerable Barbados (and other island nations) are. A key part of Mottley’s plan is to limit or cancel the debt of “climate-critical countries.”
Those on the front lines of climate are most exposed to the risks of sea level rise, along with extreme weather events such as floods, hurricanes, coastal erosion and droughts. While debt service rates for rich countries are typically 1-4%, poor countries face rates as high as 12-14%, as they are considered much riskier loans.
These high interest rates severely hamper the ability to repay, especially when trying to rebuild homes, hospitals, and schools after a major disaster. The cost of coping with climate-related natural disasters in developing countries is estimated at $70 billion per year, but could rise to as much as $300 billion by 2030.
Mottley sees the Bridgetown Initiative as working in the same way that Europe’s debt was capped after World War II, allowing countries to rebuild. Without this approach to inequality and outdated repayment structures, it would be nearly impossible for vulnerable countries to truly tackle the climate crisis, Mottley says.
The initiative also calls on rich countries, which account for four-fifths of global emissions, to increase funding for climate resilience in poorer countries.
“Our people are watching, our people are taking notice,” she told world leaders on stage at Cop26 in Glasgow.
“Are we really going to walk away without the commitment to the ambition that is so desperately needed to save lives and save the planet? Or are we so blinded and hardened that we can no longer appreciate the cry of humanity?”
The Independent reports: Climate100 List We’re hosting an online event in New York in September.
