Mottley calls for "global moral strategic leadership" (Sept. 29, 2021)

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley used her United Nations General Assembly speech last week to decry "what she characterized as the international failure of ‘global moral strategic leadership’ by world leaders. “How many more crises need to hit before we see that the international system divides, not lifts?” she asked.

Setting aside her planned speech and quoting Bob Marley & the Wailers, Mottley criticized rich countries’ inertia in the face of the existential threats facing vulnerable countries and people “If we do not control this fire, it will burn us all down,” she said, in reference to the failure of rich countries to deliver adequate finance for others to adapt to climate change. (PassBlue)

“If we can find the will to send people to the moon and solve male baldness as I have said over and over, we can solve simple problems like letting our people eat at affordable prices.” (Caribbean Life)

She also called for more equitable vaccine access for the Global South and questioned the unwillingness of states to deal effectively with fake news even as they continue to defend the public digital spaces. (CMC)

Climate Justice and Energy

• "For the Caribbean, the climate crisis is an existential threat," write Pedro Abramovay and Heloisa Griggs in an Americas Quarterly piece on how China and U.S. rivalry could accelerate green investment "The Biden administration can help center the voice and power of vulnerable populations in anticipating, adjusting to, and withstanding climate impacts through increased climate financing and assistance. This could include a focus on renewable, distributed, and community-controlled microgrids, which can ensure energy sustainability after major climate disasters."
  
  
• Signatories to the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism (which will be launched at COP26 in November) are committing to cut global tourism emissions by at least a half over the next decade and reach Net Zero emissions as soon as possible before 2050. 
  
  
• The Allied for Climate Transformation by 2025 details five key priorities for vulnerable nations at the COP26 Climate Summit. (World Resources Institute)
  
  
• The Caribbean Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency  – a specialised energy agency of CARICOM -- and the Caribbean Climate-Smart Accelerator – a non-governmental organisation – have teamed-up to help advance and accelerate the Caribbean’s sustainable energy transition. (Kaieteur News)
  
  
• Dominica has lived through increasingly intense hurricanes and was devastated by Hurricane Maria, which laid bare vulnerabilities that date back to colonial decisions. For Dominica and all Caribbean islands, colonisation and climate change have, and will continue to have, damaging consequences -- Caribbean Comeback podcast episode on climate justice.
  
  
• About 86,000 Puerto Rican homes are suffering electrical outages this week, after sargassum affected a power station over the weekend. The woes are part of an ongoing energy crisis on the island. Governor Pedro Pierluisi has said the situation is unacceptable and the energy authority head resigned this week. (EFE)
  
  
• Guyana's oil profits are less than reported, due to an agreement with companies that absolves the
  companies from paying annual income taxes to the Guyana government. (Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis)

Debt, Finance and Economics

• The Caribbean’s fragile economy is being battered by the pandemic, leaving heavily-indebted countries ill-prepared to cope with violent hurricanes and other emergencies, say experts, who worry that rising Caribbean debt will reduce countries’ ability to borrow more money in the case of a major hurricane while forcing them to spend even more on servicing their borrowing costs.  (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction)
  
  
• Guyana President Irfaan Ali said his government supports the development of the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index (MVI) to aid Small Island Developing States , since the current system of using GDP per capita is inadequate.
  
  
• Cuts to the United Kingdom’s aid budget will hit lower-income and fragile countries harder than middle-income nations, some of which will enjoy aid budget increases, according to Devex.
  
  
• The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank launched a pilot program in March for the region’s first secure digital sovereign currency, known as DCash. It’s the digital equivalent of the Eastern Caribbean dollar, and bank leaders seek to explore whether the currency could lead to deeper financial inclusion, economic growth, resilience and competitiveness in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union. (BVI Beacon)

Migration

• The pace and scale of U.S. expulsions to Haiti this month -- nearly 4,000 Haitian migrants, including hundreds of families with children, without allowing them to seek asylum -- could make the operation one of the swiftest and largest U.S. deportation campaigns of migrants by air, reports CBS. (See more recent coverage in the Latin America Daily Briefing.)
  
  
• The current tragedy at the US border is just the latest fallout from the U.S.’s failed policies toward Haiti, writes author Edwidge Danticat in the New Yorker. 
• Brought to the Dominican Republic by the promise of jobs in the sugar fields, Haitian Dominicans have spent generations in a Kafkaesque trap of statelessness, enduring decades of exploitation and even government-sanctioned murder, reports Jacobin.

Regional Relations

• The U.S. Biden-Harris administration can and should prioritize the immediate humanitarian needs of the Cuban people. U.S. leaders should uphold their campaign promises, empower the Cuban people to determine their own fate, and remove U.S. obstacles impeding stated U.S. policy goals, argues the Center for Democracy in the Americas in a new memorandum.
  

Covid-19

• Cuba has begun commercial exports of its homegrown COVID-19 vaccines, sending shipments of the three-dose Abdala vaccine to Vietnam and Venezuela, reports the Associated Press.

Education

• The University of the West Indies continues to rise among the upper echelons of the best universities in the world, according to the latest report from rating and standards agency Times Higher Education. (Jamaica Gleaner)
  

Caribbean Thinkers

• Jamaican political philosopher Charles Mills, best known for his first and now canonical 1997 book The Racial Contract, died. He used his gut-punching wit and moral clarity in defense of racial justice -- Dissent.

Culture

• Suriname’s 60-year-old vice president Ronnie Brunswijk inserted himself into a pro soccer match last week, becoming the world’s oldest professional soccer player, reports the Washington Post.
  
  
• Most literary mythical creatures draw from European folklore -- but some authors are adding to the monster canon by drawing from their respective Latinx cultures. (Tor)

• Love of cigars runs deep in many Caribbean countries. In fact, the word cigar comes from the Mayan word “Sikar,” which means “to smoke rolled tobacco leaves.” (Be Latina) 

Events and Opportunities

• COP26 Coalition is calling for decentralised actions worldwide on Nov. 6. Can’t find an action or local hub near you? You can organise one with the Coalition's assistance. 
  
  
• ACT2025's webinar, Securing an Ambitious and Just outcome at COP26: Insights from Vulnerable Countries featured Antigua and Barbuda´s Climate Change Ambassador Diann Black-Layne and Mark Bynoe (Guyana) of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre among others, and highlighted the central need to rebuild trust at the upcoming global meeting, given rich countries’ failure to make good on previously made commitments to vulnerable ones.
  
  
• The Ameena Gafoor Institute for Study of Indentureship and its Legacies is excited to announce the launch of the open access Volume 1, Issue 1 of the Journal of Indentureship and Its Legacies.
  
  
• Florida International University panelists will discuss recovery efforts disperse aid to isolated communities, and the preemptive steps to prepare for future extreme events in Haiti. Sept. 30 Registration 

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