Mottley delivered blistering attack at COP27 (Nov. 9, 2022)

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley delivered a blistering attack on industrialised nations for failing the developing world on the climate crisis, at the Cop27 U.N. climate talks that started this week. She said poor nations made rich countries' development possible, and now also pay the prices as victims of climate change they have not caused.

“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.”

Mottley also warned of a billion climate refugees around the world by the middle of the century if governments failed to tackle the climate crisis.

She criticized the lack of “simple political will” needed to push climate change goals beyond just talk.

Mottley and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore both highlighted the importance of having access to private capital to address key climate change issues, such as “loss and damage” and financing the transition to renewable energy in developing countries.

Mottley called for a trust focused on climate mitigation to unlock trillions of private sector financing and for the use of $500 billion in Special Drawing Rights — an international reserve asset that can provide countries around the world with liquidity — to unlock private sector capital to address the problem. But standing in the way of this is the United States Congress, which holds veto power over the issuance of SDRs through the International Monetary Fund, she said.

Mottley believes that her "Bridgetown Agenda" proposals to reform the international financial system to better serve crisis-affected lower-income countries will be adopted, she said in a press interview this week.

U.N. Secretary General António Guterres called for the creation of a “climate solidarity pact” between wealthier and developing countries to meet key climate goals, in his opening remarks.

(Guardian, Washington Post, Washington Post, Reuters, Devex)

COP27

• Climate negotiators at COP27 agreed to put funding to address "loss and damage" on the negotiating agenda, in response to sustained pressure from small island states and other vulnerable nations, reports Reuters.
  
  
• "For small island countries, loss and damage support is about as close as they can get to climate justice, at least from a diplomatic perspective," writes Trinidadian Dizzanne Billy at the Friedrich Ebert Siftung.
  
  
• The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) is championing the creation of a multilateral fund to enable developing countries to afford the cost of responses to loss and damage associated with climate change. (Jamaica Gleaner)
  
  
• Social development specialist Amílcar Peter Sanatan is calling on decision makers to consider radical societal and financial changes if they want to truly deliver justice to marginalised communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis. (Climate Tracker)
  
  
• "Even under the best case scenarios of mitigation and adaptation, hundreds of thousands of people will be forced from their homes in the coming decades due to climate change, adding to already strained systems of migrants and refugees. Preparing for that wave should be a regional priority at this week’s meetings and beyond," writes James Bosworth at the Latin America Risk Report.
  
  
• Finding ways to urgently increase access to affordable and adequate financing for climate action for the Caribbean will be the priority for Caribbean partners at COP27, according to the Caribbean Development Bank.

Climate Justice

• Debt-for-climate swaps have been around since the 1980s, and entered the mainstream with the coronavirus pandemic as countries were forced to take on new debt at a record pace. But the blue bond model pioneered by Belize is novel because it marshals the resources of global financial markets to unlock new conservation funding, reports the New York Times. Supporters say "debt relief initiatives could contribute to climate action by aligning the financial interests of international investors and small nations, giving them more resources for public spending and incentives to grow in a more sustainable way." (See post for Sept. 21, 2021)
  
  
• The Indigenous Guna residents of Panama's Gardi Sugdub island will become the first residents in Latin America to be moved pre-emptively by their government from a territory that is likely to fall prey to rising sea levels within coming decades, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Food Security

• Agricultural collectives and nonprofits have multiplied in Puerto Rico, where new visions of local agriculture are taking root and could hold the key to addressing the island's food insecurity issues, reports the New York Times Magazine. For many of the new farmers, "food production is both an attempt to reclaim Puerto Rico’s agricultural and culinary heritage and a declaration of self-reliance."

Health

• Guyana President Irfaan Ali, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Rwanda President Paul Kagame met with President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, and Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the sidelines of the COP27 ito discuss the furthering of pharmaceutical equity for global public health. (Businesswire, Newsroom Guyana)

Migration

• Belizean Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Courtenay denied reports that the country is in talks with the United Kingdom to accept migrants and asylum seekers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. (Loop)

Decolonization

• U.K. King Charles is reportedly “ready to have active conversations” about Britain’s involvement in the slave trade,” according to goddaughter Fiona Compton, an artist and historian from St Lucia. The news comes after it emerged that the King wants the transatlantic slave trade to be taught and understood as widely as the Holocaust, reports the Telegraph.

Public Security

• Haitian gang leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier declared the end of a two-month blockade of the country’s main oil terminal and seaports, last weekend. But even as Cherizier’s video message made the rounds Sunday, police were reporting heavy shootings in the area where the terminal is located, reports the Miami Herald.

Caribbean and the World

• The United Nations General Assembly delivered its yearly rebuke of the U.S. embargo on Cuba. Last week, 185 countries voted in favour of a non-binding resolution condemning the embargo, with the US and Israel voting against and Brazil and Ukraine abstaining. (Al Jazeera)
  

History

• "Britain and the repression of Black Power in the 1960s and ‘70s" looks at the extensive security regimes deployed against Black Power in the Caribbean that were operated by regional governments and the (neo)colonial British state. (Institute of Race Relations)

Culture

• Fifty years after John Berger’s controversial acceptance speech for the Booker Prize in 1972, in which he highlighted Booker McConnell’s involvement in the colonial exploitation of the Caribbean and announced that he would donate half of the prize money to the British Black Panthers and use the other half to research the situation of European migrant workers, Martyn Hudson reflects on the implications of the speech for anti-racist struggle in the 1970s and today, as well as the direction of Berger’s work after this pivotal intervention. (Institute of Race Relations)
  
  
• Bermudian author Angela Barry’s The Drowned Forest is "a gift to Bermuda," that shows how "Bermuda in all of its complexities is much more than a mere tourist paradise. The novel does not shrink from the problems of Bermudian life such as social break down and the particular problems with Bermudian youth which informs the kernel of the plot." (Royal Gazette)
  
  
• Kanaval: A People’s History of Haiti in Six Chapters will be showing from Saturday, November 12, via dochouse.org. Directed By Leah Gordon and Eddie Hutton-Mills, Kanaval: A People’s History of Haiti in Six Chapters presents Haitian history “through an explosion of colour, dance and music, as the country prepares for its legendary carnival. (Repeating Islands) The "impressive documentary reveals the radical significance of carnival celebrations in the making of a nation with a dark, difficult past," according to the Guardian.

We welcome comments and critiques on the Just Caribbean Updates. You can see the Updates on our website, as well as receive it directly through the mailing list. Thank you for reading.

We aim for the JCU to be an informational tool, as well as a space for connection between Caribbean experts, policy-makers, activists and organizations. If you would like to post an event or opportunity on the JCU, we invite you to send the information to justcaribbeanupdates@gmail.com. Please put in the following format: date -- title of event -- organizer -- registration link OR title of opportunity -- institution -- link to more information.