Tuesday, May 2, 2023 (Bridgetown, Barbados) — Prime Minister Mottley, during the early morning hours on Tuesday, participated virtually in the Petersberg Climate Dialogue taking place in Berlin.
Transcript of Remarks by the Honourable Mia Amor Mottley during Session 1 of the Petersberg Climate Dialogue (via Zoom) taking place in Berlin
May 2, 2023
00:00:00:14 – 00:00:25:21
Mia Amor Mottley
Thank you very much, madam, And I wish I could be with you in Germany now, but we had matters in Barbados that I had to attend to. Nevertheless, the burden of whether we can keep global temperatures from rising much beyond the 1.5 degrees of warming cannot fall on the poorest countries. Those who are least responsible for the stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
00:00:26:04 – 00:01:01:20
Mia Amor Mottley
We heard that just now in the speech from Dr. Sultan. And I want to repeat it. Even beyond the unquestionable moral case, that transition is the most expensive in the poorest countries, where capital costs are is already the highest and where most technology is, in fact, imported. So we have to finance it. Yes, it is a lot of money and yes, it is a genuine attempt to finally meet reality and not hold onto in notional hundred billion that was promised 14 years ago.
00:01:01:29 – 00:01:33:25
Mia Amor Mottley
As if that could solve the problem today. We need just over $2 trillion a year. But we can do this if we deconstruct and reconstruct. Part of the money will come from private savings when we can reduce the excessive risk premia that financial markets charge, particularly for countries from the global South. These risk premia prove to be overpayments that ultimately fatten the coffers, coffers of financiers and indeed enhance their profits tremendously.
00:01:34:16 – 00:02:03:15
Mia Amor Mottley
We need a joint partnership between the IMF and the World Bank that will allow us to guarantee long-run exchange rates without the excess risk premium to drive private savings into financing the green transformation. If this is what needs to be done to attract the private savings, let us do it and deconstruct the risk. Part of the money will also come from a much expanded international, regional and national development banking system.
00:02:04:04 – 00:03:21:15
Mia Amor Mottley
They must be able to hold the IMF SDRs and count new forms of capital if they are to meet the goals. The rich world most responsible for the emissions must also commit to the relatively small amounts of paid in capital that in the 80 years of the World Bank has never been lost, but has been leveraged to over $800 billion of lending from the initial capital of 22 billion. Money, representing 0.3% of the rich world’s economy can generate the lending needed for the UN SDG stimulus of over $500 billion annually, making the world more resilient to climate and pandemic shocks, less fragile and narrowing of course, the digital divide.
And the focus must be on the poorest, separate to new capital for the World Bank and the MDBs, we also urge a $100 billion capital replenishment of IDA. And why? We cannot reach 2050 without going through 2030. And the SDG stimulus includes the climate crisis as one of the key objectives. Part of the money where it cannot generate a return and where it cannot be paid back must come from new taxes and charges.
00:03:22:03 – 00:03:57:12
Mia Amor Mottley
Why? Because we need that new conversation with our economic actors. A get real moment. A world in which the same year that fossil fuel companies make over $1,000,000,000,000 of profits, 33 million people are left homeless in Pakistan, partly as a result of melting glaciers. 27,000 schools are underwater and 40,000 have died in the Somalian drought. A world that will be torn literally apart by deep economic and political fractures where no one, no company would be left safe.
00:03:57:24 – 00:04:19:07
Mia Amor Mottley
We have not found a way to live on the planet Mars, as I keep saying. And therefore, debt alone cannot get countries to where they need to reach. And that is where the loss and damage fund remains so critical. A part of that conversation. So I say to everyone, let us talk. Let us talk and settle on the right path forward.
00:04:19:22 – 00:04:57:21
Mia Amor Mottley
And this is not complicated. If the revenues from a 1% tax, for example, on oil and gas exports were added to all – a half of the revenues from $100 per tonne carbon tax on shipping or a 0.1% stamp duty on financial transactions. A combination of initiatives such as these three or others that people may prefer will help us finance the current reconstruction costs from natural disasters can go ultimately to capitalizing a loss and damage fund.
00:04:58:01 – 00:05:38:20
Mia Amor Mottley
And if the issue is liability, let us leave liability at the side for now and let us put the money where it is needed and cap liabilities and deal with the lawyers where the lawyers want to be dealt with. But let us meet the people where the needs of the climate crisis are. My friends, this really is the core of the Bridgetown Initiative, and it has been improved through further consultation over the course of the last few weeks, and we hope to be able to issue something within the next two weeks that will allow further constructive conversation in this critical area that all of us know, as we heard from Dr. Sultan, must be resolved.
00:05:38:29 – 00:06:05:24
Mia Amor Mottley
If finance is not accessible, affordable and available, we are going nowhere. But in addition to finance, someone must be designated to also ensure that our commitments to net zero are not just comments made under bright lights, but a real plan to be executed by the procurement of the critical goods, the plant and the equipment that we need to execute these commitments to net zero.
00:06:06:07 – 00:06:27:02
Mia Amor Mottley
And that is why I say that we need a just industrial strategy for the global South as well, where there is not only a lowering and a leveling of the debt, as I spoke to just now, but also access to technology and equipment critical to the production of supplies that we are not receiving in order to make our commitments real.
00:06:27:18 – 00:07:01:21
Mia Amor Mottley
Failure, therefore, my friends, to do so will further erode what little trust remains there in the global South. We all know that the global stocktake will lead us and must lead us to a course correction. My friends, I said last week in New York as I met with the [UN] Secretary General, the world is running out of time to fix the international financial system that is broken, outdated and downright unfair, but which is absolutely necessary for us to successfully meet and manage the climate crisis.
00:07:02:06 – 00:07:51:02
Mia Amor Mottley
Too many countries are being prevented from fighting this crisis and from creating decent opportunities for billions of people, their citizens, because there are growth opportunities in this battle. If countries cannot access the finance they need at rates they can afford, the world will lose the battle regrettably; not simply the countries who have not been able to finance it. And if they have the finance but cannot buy what they need, the world will still lose the battle. I have said, as I said recently, what is good for the North is good for the South, is good for the East and is good for the West. This is not only the moral and right thing to do, but it is the best development strategy for the people of the developing world.
00:07:51:16 – 00:08:22:13
Mia Amor Mottley
It is indeed the best development strategy for the planet. I would like to commend the listening tour undertaken by Dr. Sultan Al Jaber as this was, and is the only way of understanding what consensus can look like across this world. And more than anything else, we must go to Dubai with a record and not a promise. That will be the best example of the honesty that the [UN] Secretary General called for in his address this morning.
00:08:23:04 – 00:09:22:17
Mia Amor Mottley
And we must make it happen along the way. We can start from where we are today in Germany, or we can go to Paris where the new global financial pact will be discussed. Or we can do it at the Climate Ambition Summit in New York in September, or the Annual Meetings in Marrakesh in October, or the total of all of them, such that when we reach Dubai, we do so, Sultan, with a record and not only promises. The developing world now needs honesty and a record in order to continue to play its part. We wish you, Sultan, and the people and government of the UAE all of the very best as you get ready to host COP 28. And we have confidence that if the urgency of the moment can be buttressed by the courage of countries and men and women, then Dubai COP 28 will be a turning point for the world.
00:09:22:26 – 00:09:23:11
Mia Amor Mottley
Thank you.
References:
Original broadcast: https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1lPKqBdyvrMGb
PMOBarbados recording: https://youtu.be/BkMk2Q4ZKLU