‘Drowning not only in floodwater but in debt’: Vulnerable nations take cash for climate into their own hands
The prime minister of Barbados is somewhat of a rockstar at these climate talks, if there can be such a thing.
Yesterday at COP27, Mia Mottley was greeted at an event by a media swarm and packed youth audience, with one member from Trinidad and Tobago proudly exclaiming: “I’m here because I want Mia Mottley to run the Caribbean.”
That’s not just down to the searing attack she directed at the rich world on Monday – leaders lack “the simple political will” to “make a definable difference in the lives of the people who we have a responsibility to serve”, she said.
It also because she is trying to radically overhaul the global financial system, which she says was designed after the Second World War but is not fit for today’s number one challenge: the climate crisis.
Extreme weather events such as hurricanes, droughts and floods, which disproportionately hit vulnerable countries such as island nation Barbados, turn into bigger debt burdens for those who are already least able to afford them.
“If we have to borrow for climate, then it crowds out the borrowing we must do for education, for health care, for clean water,” Ms Mottley said in response to a question from Sky News on Tuesday.
“The system is broken,” she said, citing borrowing rates in the G7 costing between 1-4%, but in most of the Global South hitting some 12-14%.
“So you begin to see the disparity,” she added.
A key part of the plan is to reform the IMF and multilateral development banks to provide debt relief and allow members to borrow cheaply from each other’s reserves, freeing up cash to help them to cope with climate change. It also lowers risk for lenders if countries are less likely to go bankrupt.
“How is it possible that we have these enormous international financial institutions in place,” asked Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the Pakistani foreign minister, and yet still “when we come to face historic flooding, like we did in Pakistan, that we end up not only drowning in the floodwater, we also end up drowning in the debt as a result of having to rebuild?”
Pakistan, facing $40bn clear-up costs, is one country lobbying for “debt swaps”, championed by United Nations chief Antonio Guterres, where creditors allow poorer countries to redirect interest payments towards climate measures when disasters strike.
“People of Pakistan are literally paying in the form of their lives and their livelihoods for a crisis that they didn’t create,” the minister told Sky News in Sharm el-Sheikh.
Developing nations are ‘angry at the failure’
Part of the reason countries are so desperate is that rich polluting nations have broken a promise to fund $100bn a year of climate measures in poorer nations.
“Developing countries are angry at this failure… $100bn was only ever a fraction of the amount needed, a symbol of goodwill and of recognition of historical responsibility,” said Sarah Colenbrander, director of the climate programme at ODI, a global affairs think tank.
“So they have stepped forward with a number of responses and solutions themselves,” added Ms Colenbrander, who is observing thorny finance negotiations.
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Summit hinges on taboo issue of whether developed nations will pay climate compensation
The issue on everyone’s lips at the conference in Egypt is the idea that rich, polluting countries should pay compensation for the climate breakdowns battering their poorer, far less polluting counterparts.
The group of 20 (G20) major economies is responsible for a whopping 80% of climate-heating gases, while the whole of African is responsible for just 4%, but is suffering disproportionately.
In an historic moment, the concept of compensation made it on to the agenda of a United Nations conference for the first time, after years of lobbying by small island nations in particular. But rich countries such as the United States resist the idea, and the cash may not ever flow.
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Pakistan PM gives emotive speech at COP27
With no time to lose, the V20, a group of finance ministers from 58 vulnerable nations, are designing plans to supercharge green industries, and therefore their economies, by detaching the risk of the project from the perceived risk of investing in their country.
“The vulnerable nations bear the brunt of the crisis. However, we did the least to cause it and are least equipped to solve it,” the group’s chair, Ghana’s Ken Ofori-Atta, told Sky News.
African countries are on course to suffer a 20% hit to their GDP within 30 years if the world warms as predicted, according to a report released on “finance day” at the COP27 talks today, hammering home the risks for poor countries.
“So yes, to a certain degree, [countries are] being a lot more proactive about [finance] and insisting on one’s right for this right not to occur.”
“Developing countries are not the only ones who see that the system is broken,” added Ms Colenbrander. Developed nations are also seeking reforms to unlock money to fund climate measures.
“Obviously you’ve got a real opportunity for change, if you have everyone from Barbados to Pakistan to the US to Germany rallying behind demands for that multilateral system to do better. So I think we can expect quite a bold vision coming out” next year, she said.
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World
Trump criticises Putin after potentially ‘historic’ meeting with Zelenskyy before Pope’s funeral
Donald Trump has criticised Vladimir Putin and suggested a shift in his stance towards the Russian president after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the Pope’s funeral.
The Ukrainian president said the one-on-one talks could prove to be “historic” after pictures showed him sitting opposite Mr Trump, around two feet apart, in the large marble hall inside St Peter’s Basilica.
The US president said he doubted his Russian counterpart’s willingness to end the war after leaving Rome after the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican.
Follow live updates: 200,000 mourn at Vatican
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said “there was no reason” for the Russian president “to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days”.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
He added: “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!”
The meeting between the US and Ukrainian leaders was their first face-to-face encounter since a very public row in the Oval Office in February.
Mr Zelenskyy said he had a good meeting with Mr Trump in which they talked about the defence of the Ukrainian people, a full and unconditional ceasefire, and a durable and lasting peace that would prevent the war restarting.
Other images released by the Ukrainian president’s office show Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron were present for part of the talks, which were described as “positive” by the French presidency.
Mr Zelenskyy‘s spokesman said the meeting lasted for around 15 minutes and he and Mr Trump had agreed to hold further discussions later on Saturday.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in the Basilica
But the US president left Rome for Washington on Air Force One soon after the funeral without any other talks having taken place.
The Ukrainian president’s office said there was no second meeting in Rome because of the tight schedule of both leaders, although he had separate discussions with Mr Starmer and Mr Macron.
The French president said in a post on X “Ukraine is ready for an unconditional ceasefire” and that a so-called coalition of the willing, led by the UK and France, would continue working to achieve a lasting peace.
There was applause from some of the other world leaders in attendance at the Vatican when Mr Zelenskyy walked out of St Peter’s Basilica after stopping in front of the pontiff’s coffin to pay his respects.
Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president met for the first time since their Oval Office row. Pic: Reuters
Sir Tony Brenton, the former British ambassador to Russia, said the event presents diplomatic opportunities, including the “biggest possible meeting” between Mr Trump and the Ukrainian leader.
He told Sky News it could mark “an important step” in starting the peace process between Russia and Ukraine.
Professor Father Francesco Giordano told Sky News the meeting is being called “Pope Francis’s miracle” by members of the clergy, adding: “There’s so many things that happened today – it was just overwhelming.”
The bilateral meeting comes after Mr Trump’s peace negotiator Steve Witkoff held talks with Mr Putin at the Kremlin.
They discussed “the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
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Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which began in February 2022.
Mr Trump has claimed a deal to end the war is “very close” and has urged Mr Zelenskyy to “get it done” in a post on his Truth Social platform.
He has previously warned both sides his administration would walk away from its efforts to achieve a peace if the two sides do not agree a deal soon.
Meanwhile, the Polish armed forces said a Russian military helicopter violated its airspace over the Baltic Sea on Friday evening.
“The nature of the incident indicates that Russia is testing the readiness of our air defence systems,” they said in a post on X.
On an extraordinary day, remarkable pictures on the margins that capture what may be a turning point for the world.
In a corner of St Peter’s Basilica before the funeral of Pope Francis, the leaders of America and Ukraine sit facing each other in two solitary chairs.
They look like confessor and sinner except we cannot tell which one is which.
Leaning forward hands together in their laps, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy stare at each other in one photo.
In another, the Ukrainian president seems to be remonstrating with the US president. This is their first encounter since their infamous bust-up in the Oval Office.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
Other pictures show the moment their French and British counterparts introduced the two men. There is a palpable sense of nervousness in the way the leaders engage.
We do not know what the two presidents said in their brief meeting.
But in the mind of the Ukrainian leader will be the knowledge President Trump has this week said America will reward Russia for its unprovoked brutal invasion of his country, under any peace deal.
Mr Trump has presented Ukraine and Russia with a proposal and ultimatum so one-sided it could have been written in the Kremlin.
Kyiv must surrender the land Russia has taken by force, Crimea forever, the rest at least for now. And it must submit to an act of extortion, a proposed deal that would hand over half its mineral wealth effectively to America.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Afterwards, Zelenskyy said it had been a good meeting that could turn out to be historic “if we reach results together”.
They had talked, he said, about the defence of Ukraine, a full and unconditional ceasefire and a durable and lasting peace that will prevent a war restarting.
The Trump peace proposal includes only unspecified security guarantees for Ukraine from countries that do not include the US. It rules out any membership of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s allies are watching closely to see if Mr Trump will apply any pressure on Vladimir Putin, let alone punish him for recent bloody attacks on Ukraine.
Or will he simply walk away if the proposal fails, blaming Ukrainian intransigence, however outrageously, before moving onto a rapprochement with Moscow.
If he does, America’s role as guarantor of international security will be seen effectively as over.
This could be the week we see the world order as we have known it since the end of the Second World War buried, as well as a pope.
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