Prime Minister, the Hon. Philip Davis, has committed to the trade of local carbon credits by the end of this year. Mr. Davis was speaking to Bloomberg News while attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Davis has been a strong advocate for developed countries and major contributors to climate change paying for the damage caused in vulnerable countries like The Bahamas.
Mr. Davis said, “one were to look at the profile of our debt and how it was incurred you’d find that up to forty or more percent of that debt is related to consequences of climate change. And so most of our debt is basically related to matters to which we did not contribute.”
Davis further stated, “what you must remember is that most people are now talking about mitigation and adaptation, loss and damage is still not making its way to the agenda. And when you look at mitigation, you’re talking about reducing the carbon emissions. When you talk about adaptation, you’re talking about building resilience and to be able to adapt. Those two thing you’re talking about but what you have to realize is that there is still a lot of carbon in the air. Its not enough just to reduce our emissions now, there’s still a lot of carbon up in the air that has to be sucked out.”
The Davis administration has passed legislation, identified carbon sinks and have announced their intention to trade carbon credits. Mr. Davis said, “once the word got out that we were pursuing monetizing our carbon credits, I has unsolicited offers just to buy it, number ranging from $350 million to $400 million. So for me to have had that, it tells me its probably four times that.
