Earth Today | SIDS need $2 trillion in climate money annually

THE University of the West Indies’ virtual Vice-Chancellor’s Forum on the Bridgetown Initiative, held on March 30, placed expert stakeholder voices and Caribbean citizens at the same table for an important conversation on finance mobilisation for climate change.

Referencing the 2022 report of an independent high-level expert group on climate finance – co-chaired by Dr Vera Songwe and Professor Lord Nicholas Stern – panellist, Professor Avinash Persaud, Special Envoy to the Prime Minister of Barbados for Investment and Financial Services, revealed that annually $2 trillion is required for developing countries to respond to the effects of climate change.

“That number is bigger than any developing country’s balance sheet. It’s beyond all the philanthropists. It’s a big number. Bridgetown is a system of finance that gets us to $2 trillion a year,” he said.

Host of the forum, vice-chancellor of The UWI, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, convened an impressive team to discuss the matter.

In addition to Professor Persaud, on the panel were Ambassador Malgorzata Wasilewska, head of the European Union Delegation to Barbados, the OECS and CARICOM/CARIFORUM; the Hon Kerrie Symmonds, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Barbados – representing Prime Minister of Barbados, the Hon Mia Mottley – and Kevin Bender, director of Greening Sovereign Debt, The Nature Conservancy.

The collective call is now for a global coalition to fund climate mitigation and adaptation.

“The university is honoured to stay supportive of the strategy of economic justice for the people of this region and all of those who have suffered the exploitative journey of colonialism,” Beckles said.

“This initiative, this vision, emergent from the economic and political imagination of Prime Minister Mottley is consistent with the finest economic thinking that has emerged out of this region. It is consistent with the vision that has been embedded and enrooted in the economics of The UWI,” he said further.

NOT ENOUGH DONOR MONEY

Wasilewska noted the EU’s bridge building role as new funding arrangements were established at COP 27 (UN climate change conference). She also called for funding beyond public purses.

“I have to stress that the EU and its member states are the largest providers of climate finance in the world. We will be no less ambitious as we move towards 2027. However, public finance will never be enough to respond to the scale of the climate and environment challenge. All actors will need to be on board and align financial flows with the Paris Agreement goals. This includes the private sector and multilateral development banks,” Wasilewska said.

Symmonds agreed.

“The simple moral message is that if there is no planet then there can be no profits; so, it is well within the interest of some of these companies to also be involved in the conversation,” he said.

The Nature Conservancy representative confirmed that as they have worked with SIDS funding conservation, biodiversity and climate projects, they have found that which Bridgetown Initiative laments.

“There’s not enough donor money, just like there’s not enough public sector funding to cover all the needs of climate adaptation and climate mitigation – so our group is tasked with finding new solutions for coming up with the cash flow for climate protection,” Bender said.

“The mitigation world is much more conducive to commercial financing. Getting as much commercial financing into that public sector space as possible; I think that is the real opportunity of the Bridgetown Initiative,” he added.

The Bridgetown Initiative proposes significant reform of the global finance architecture in favour of climate-vulnerable countries. It was devised by a group led by the Barbados prime minister.