During his National Statement at the 81st United Nations General Assembly, on September 25, 2026, Prime Minister the Hon. Philip Davis noted that, when it came to the climate crisis, there was no uncertainty.
“The sea does not negotiate,” he said. “It does not read communiqués; and it does not recognise a veto.”
He added: “In 2024, for the first time, the world was more than one and a half degrees warmer for an entire year. The line which small island states fought to write into the Paris Agreement, has already been crossed. A new report released only days ago warns that the El Niño phenomenon, now heating the planet, is likely to cost some 450,000 lives by next February.”
Prime Minister Davis pointed out that, in 2019, Hurricane Dorian inflicted damage and losses on The Bahamas equal to roughly a quarter of its national output, and families “watched the sea take the only land they had”.
“Most of my country sits barely above sea level,” he said. “For us, a rising ocean is not a forecast. It is a boundary inching towards our doorsteps.”
“That is why The Bahamas proudly endorses yesterday’s Declaration on Sea-Level Rise, which affirms that our statehood, our boundaries and our seat in this Assembly will not be washed away by the sea,” Prime Minister Davis added.
He stated that the science was certain.
“Last year, the International Court of Justice made clear that the law is also certain,” Prime Minister said.
He added: “The injustice is certain too. The people who bear least responsibility are asked to adapt first, pay more, and recover from disasters they did not cause. And the self-interest is certain. People who lose their homes do not disappear. They move, and they arrive at someone’s border. Prevention costs less than rebuilding or relocating.”
Prime Minister Davis pointed out that The Bahamas was taking action.
“But no nation, acting alone, can hold back the tides; nor can we build resilience inside a financial system designed at Bretton Woods in 1944, which still declares us too prosperous to help, until the next storm makes us poor,” he said.
Prime Minister Davis added: “The Vulnerability Index exists. The Loss and Damage Fund exists. What is missing is the power shift to make them operational and real.”
He said that the next contest for power will not only be fought over land and sea – it will be fought over data.
“Our citizens’ data crosses the world without a visa and without a vote,” Prime Minister Davis said. “It leaves our shores as raw material, and returns as products we must buy.”
“We have seen this pattern before,” he added. “My islands once exported salt, sponge and sisal. Others set the price. Others kept the profit.”
Prime Minister Davis pointed out that, although the commodity had changed, the pattern had not.
“This is colonisation by data,” he stated.
Prime Minister Davis added: “It does not arrive with ships and flags. It arrives in a box on a screen and a button that says, I agree. I am talking about the capacity of a people to govern their own digital lives. People whose daily lives and histories are being mined, should decide where their data lives, and who may use it and on what terms.
“Those people should be able to share in the value which their data creates.”
He stated that it meant building artificial intelligence “that understands our languages, our laws and our lives, not only the lives of those in the wealthy North” and dominating languages and cultures.
“And it means taking part in the digital age on our own terms, not as consumers of other people’s systems, but as builders of our own,” Prime Minister said.
He added: “Data is the newest raw material in the global economy. The old empires took our lands, plundered them and renamed them. The new ones seek to take our data, and hand us back a picture of ourselves, one we did not paint. In this modern age, are we expected to be simply the unquestioning suppliers of data, or can we not rightfully expect to participate in processing our own data so as to refine it, govern it and profit from it?”
Prime Minister Davis stated that The Bahamas did not think it outrageous to demand that small states “help write the rules of this new age, not simply be shown where to sign”.
“That is why The Bahamas asks you to support the nomination of Mr. Stephen Bereaux for Deputy Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union, a person from a Small Island Developing State, who will assist us in ensuring that we have – what I call – data sovereignty.”
Prime Minister Davis stated that the Security Council “was designed by the victors of a war that ended eighty-one years ago”.
“The world has changed,” he said. “The Council has not.”
Prime Minister Davis continued: “Five nations still hold a veto over the peace of 193. Most of the nations in this Hall did not exist when that arrangement was made. None of us was asked. An institution that cannot reform itself cannot hope to reform the world. Power without legitimacy is not order. It is control. And a peace kept only by the powerful is not peace. It is permission.”
He stated that it was why The Bahamas sought a seat on the Council for the 2032–2033 term.
“The Bahamas does not seek a seat on the Council to sit quietly inside that arrangement,” Prime Minister Davis said. “We seek it to help change it: a Council that reflects the world as it is, and that gives small island states a dedicated seat at the table where our survival is decided.”
He added that change must also reach the leadership of that Organization.
“The Bahamas supports the candidature of Her Excellency Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett of Guyana for Secretary-General,” Prime Minister Davis said.
“A former Foreign Minister who has presided over the Security Council, she understands what rules mean for nations with no other protection,” he added. “In 81 years, this Organization has had nine Secretaries-General – all of them men, none has come from the Caribbean.
“We in The Bahamas believe the time has come for both to change.”
