Leaders from across the Caribbean have arrived in the capital for the first regional meeting on climate change. The two day event, being held at the Bahamar Resort, kicked off with a press conference led by Prime Minister, the Hon. Philip Brave Davis. The Prime Minister has championed the cause of climate change mitigation since coming to office, especially that of climate financing.
Mr. Davis expressed his high expectations for stakeholders post the conference. He said, “what we expect to achieve here is the promotion of ensuring that the individual needs of our various Caribbean communities are identified, we see how we can find our common interests and common causes to ensure that our voice is heard. There are a number of issues that we’ll be discussing and the outcomes from here will be documented in an outcome paper that we will hope to be put to COP 27 and in speaking with one voice we think we will be able to move the needle a little bit.”
Developing countries around the world, which are the largest contributors to global warming, have not followed through on the promise of climate financing for countries like The Bahamas that are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. On this issue the Prime Minister said, “the pressure is not that we are pressuring them but they have committed. We want them to live up to their word because for my part, and I have said it before, we are commitment fatigued and we are pledge fatiqued. The pledge to make available $100 billion is yet to be realized and that we made fifteen years ago. And so the question now is…the time for action is now. The time for talking needs to cease.”
The Prime Minister has expressed his confidence that countries in the region would soon have access to climate funding thought he also said that he was cautiously optimistic in this regard. He further stated that, “the initiatives thats been embraced now by legislationin the United States and Austrailia gives me that confidence that we will see, at least those two countries, living up to their commitment.”
The conference ends on August 17th.
