March 12, 2025 – Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Conference Centre, Barbados
Rough Transcript
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:00:01
Thank you very much, my dear friend. Please sit. I think you realize by now that my voice has known better days, but nevertheless, it is my pleasure and honor to welcome all of you to Barbados and to those from our nation to join with you in welcoming our friends to our lovely home.
Your Excellency, the President of Sierra Leone, my dear brother, I really do want to welcome you to the Caribbean. And in particular to this country. Our two countries, I believe, have more in common and more linkages historically than most people are aware. Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Gambia are the countries that are not normally called in our relationship with Africa. But we know that once we start to unfold the historical linkages,
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:01:05
people will appreciate why you say we look like each other. My dear brothers and sisters, ministers in particular, Deputy Prime Minister of Tanzania, my dear brother Minister of Finance from Nigeria, former Vice President of Nigeria, Second Lady of Ghana, my dear Caribbean brother in whom we are very, very proud,
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:01:36
Mr. Simon Steele, the head of the UN Framework for the CCC, and then our very own Selvin Hart, who continues to be a distinguished advisor to His Excellency Antonio Guterres on climate. Ladies and gentlemen, the MC. he said that he wouldn’t trade me, that he would share me. And perhaps the word share.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:02:07
is at the core of the few remarks that I want to make with you today. Because in a very real sense, the world as it stands today is confronted with a very difficult reality and, understanding that the climate crisis is propelling us in ways that ordinary people feel, know, are displaced. But at the same time, in spite of the valiant efforts of my.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:02:47
dear brother, the president of COP29 in Azerbaijan, the financing companies and governments of the world. are saying otherwise. And ordinary people are asked to reflect on what is my reality and how do I prepare for this reality? At the same time, how do I recognize.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:03:18
that I’m going to need to change my behavior as governments, as citizens, if we are going to overcome both the hurdles of development and the critical need to build resilience among our people? When we speak of energy in the Caribbean, we are fortunate that the majority of our people have access to energy.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:03:50
But we ignore the fact that across the global south, that they are of the 1.4 billion people. And it’s President Ajay Banga for committing to wanting to have that 600 million and to secure for 300 million energy.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:04:23
But 300 million people is inconceivable to us in a small rock whose population is less than 300,000 people. And the notion that we can continue with business as usual, with persons being denied access to energy, is at the core of national instability, regional instability, and ultimately global instability.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:04:58
I want to suggest… to you that the confluence of both the climate crisis and the lack of basic energy for propelling development means that we have to redouble our efforts in spite of those who would wish now to put brakes on access to financing for ordinary people to be able to secure their.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:05:30
future ordinary people need energy it is what has propelled growth in the last few centuries in ways that mankind never contemplated could happen to the point where our own engagement, with our own sense of who we are as humanity is being put to the test with the ultimate output, of energy in the form of AI.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:06:04
By the same token, wildfires that ravaged California in ways that are apocalyptic or droughts that continue to affect East Africa or hurricanes that have decimated islands that have been dear to our heart from Karakou to Union Island or storm surge that has delivered a body blow.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:06:35
to my own people and my own country here with Hurricane Beryl last year to the point where you know that aspects of our development will have to be deferred in order to meet the very critical objective of coastal resilience and the rebuilding of coastal infrastructure as well as our own fishing industry. These events… are not in a fiction book. They are real.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:07:06
And the reason why I said that your word sheer will come to be at the center of all that we speak about today is that we are going to have to use a good cricketing term for those of you from the Commonwealth and take fresh guard again. Bridgestone 3.0 recognized that this might have been a possibility. And in it, we spoke about.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:07:38
domestic resource mobilization. In it, we recognized, that the pooling of activities would become critical. In our own region, Caribbean community, we have started the preliminary work of seeing what it can look like. If instead of each country trying to go off on their own for off-take agreements or to compensate for the fact that we are one of the most underpopulated regions in the world.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:08:10
with the exception of Haiti in our community, to compensate for the lack of demand, our energy capacity, our renewable energy capacity in this region is significantly higher than our ability to be able to use the off-take therefrom. And we therefore, rather than seeking to move 1-1,
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:08:42
have to come together to determine how we can leverage Guyana and Suriname’s hydroelectric potential, and its vast solar because of the land, the geothermal of Dominique. Jamaica, St. Kitts, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and St. Lucia, the offshore and onshore wind potential and solar potential of Jamaica, Belize, the various associate territories, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:09:27
In order to meet global demand, whether it be in Europe or Japan or wherever else, President von der Leyen less than three weeks ago in visiting Barbados to the Caribbean Community Heads of Government Conference made us aware of the fact that they in Europe have determined that they will produce 10 million tons of green hydrogen by 2030, but they will need to import.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:10:00
10 million tons of green hydrogen by 2030. And while there has been much commercial activity between Europe and Africa, the reality is that within our own community, Trinidad and Tobago has stood as a credible and large supplier of ammonia, not just in this region, but to Europe already. Already, green hydrogen is explosive for transportation.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:10:31
But the conversion into ammonia creates a different business case. And I stand here today to tell you that if we tried to walk this journey alone, we would be having a lot of polite conversations in the margins and on verandas. About what could be and what might be. But if we summon the… energy and the political will, as you heard from President Bayo, to recognize that in.
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partnership we can achieve so much. Europe has made its claim very clear. And President von der Leyen called for reliable partners to be able to attain this objective. You have heard that capacity and financing continue to bedevil us. And Europe has perfected the art of using guarantees to unlock additional capital. My dear friend Arantxa Gonzalez is.
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here as the former head of ITC, former Foreign Minister of Spain, and who continues to carry the flag for boosting partnerships and creating opportunities for small businesses. I’m told you, sir. I look forward to hearing your words. But the point is this, that in the Caribbean community alone, we have 6 billion US dollars, and it may sound small to those of you who are accustomed to large countries, but for us, it is appreciable.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:12:16
But we have 6 billion US alone in domestic excess liquidity, attracting from 0.01% to, in most instances with the exception of one country, below 5% in interest rates. And we know from our own debt-for-climate swap, supported ably by the Inter-American Development Bank, and by the.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:12:46
European Investment Bank, on the particular issue of guarantees, and then, of course, the Green Climate Fund that has remained the only major credible source for investment. Many of us in the Global South and Mafalda, I welcome you to Barbados and thank you for your excellent work. It is the guarantee given by the European Investment Bank that unlocked that debt for climate swap for us.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:13:19
that allows us, without increasing, a cent in our debt to be able to completely rebuild a south coast sewage treatment plant and to carry for the first time it to tertiary level, treating water that is to go back into the aquifers, to replenish the aquifers and to provide irrigation for farmers in the east of our own country.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:13:53
The beautiful thing about the game of cricket is that you learn early. have to play on the pitch as it is, not as you would like it. And Barbados has perhaps produced more global cricketers of excellence per capita than any other part of the world. I apologize to my brothers in Grenada and Trinidad and elsewhere, even in India. But.
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in learning that, it learns that we play on the wicket as it is, not as you would like it. And you don’t spend time or energy crying over what could have been, but we deal with the world as it is on the 12th of March, 2025. I therefore ask us to use this opportunity, to make the partnerships.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:14:58
To perfect the network. That will help us unlock the financing that is critical. I also ask us to recognize that as small states or as developing states, mimicry does not get us very far. If we try to establish regulatory structures that are known to the North Atlantic world,
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:15:32
whose systems of development and whose institutions are completely different, we find ourselves, as my own country has done, regrettably, in the last three and a half years, caught up in regulatory arbitrage that has done nothing other than to lock off and block off over half a billion dollars of investment in renewable energy that is weak. and exploding to be put into action.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:16:04
And I share this with you because I’m sure that if we can learn from each other and do not have to repeat the mistakes of each other, we will get much further ahead. The reality is that most of our markets are way too small, to command the attention of even commercial providers, leaders, far less to be talking about the things that are necessary to distort competition or to avoid corruption.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:16:35
And what we lose is time, and what we lose is the benefit of curtailing and increasing temperature globally. What we lose is an inability to build the resilience that we need. Our own energy transition investment plan is an investment plan that contemplates that Barbados will reach next. zero by 2035. We are committed to that goal. But we equally recognize, and we’ve had to go to.
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parliament twice to change legislation, to start to streamline what would otherwise be complex processes that have already delayed us three and a half years. So long as we can satisfy ourselves of the public purpose and be aware of the public mischief, we then have to find new ways that are appropriate to size and institutional maturity to be able to help us advance the execution of.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:17:47
these targets that we have set ourselves. And I believe that if we can create, as I said, the international platform that can de-risk, investments that will allow for South-South cooperation, that will allow for the creation of guarantees so that we can better access domestic savings, so that they too can be part and parcel of the community that benefits from the rewards that would otherwise be available.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:18:23
only to established capital, that we can create a win-win through shared partnerships. And I want to remind us that even on the regulatory aspect and the issue of capacity separately, without the assistance of the Rockefeller Foundation, IKEA, and the Bezos Foundation in partnership, launched in Dubai at COP28.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:18:54
We would not be able to be where we are today on the verge of finally getting access to, to the procurement of batteries so small that without them, we wouldn’t even be able to access who would sell us batteries, but equally so expensive that without the blended capital, the cost of electricity in the right way through renewable energy would become prohibitive and unaffordable for small populations.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:19:30
There is still a global conversation to be had with respect to how do you offset the constraints of size to facilitate the equitable partnership and inclusion of small states in a just transition for clean energy and renewable energy in particular. And I say so. Conscious that most of the times, and you heard from Lisa this morning about the curse of invisibility, most of the time we are invisible.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:20:13
And that’s why you hear me say all the time, see people, hear people, feel people. Because it is that failure to recognize the circumstances and concerns of small states that will have us coming in as collateral damage in the whole exercise of transitioning to just and clean energy. I want to address one other matter this morning, recognizing that the pitch is as it is, and not as we would like it.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:20:48
I mentioned Guyana and Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. They are countries in this region who have had, and continue to have, a rich fossil fuel potential, and we must respect it. The IEA’s targets, International Energy Association’s targets for 2050 for net zero, recognizes 20% of energy will still come from fossil fuels.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:21:23
So that has not been the issue. And the issue is not fossil fuels’ simplicity either. The issue has always been, Selvin, emissions. Emissions. Methane is 80 times, and I’m not speaking to those of you in the audience who know better and know more than me, but I’m speaking to the wider population. Methane is 80 times more destructive than carbon.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:22:00
The problem is that carbon stays in the atmosphere for centuries, but the good thing is that methane actually, according to the scientists, will only stay for about 12 to 15 years. It is therefore entirely possible for the world to see appreciable progress if we can settle not on a voluntary compact for the eradication of the methane.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:22:38
that is destroying so much of our atmosphere, but for a global compact. And why is the global compact in the interest of everyone? Methane predominantly comes from leaks in gas pipes. and the flaring of gas. If you stop flaring the gas, what happens? You earn money.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:23:08
If you stop allowing the leaks and you fix the pipes, you do what? You earn money. And in the circumstances, it then becomes a win-win for the owners of the pipes and the owners of the gas platforms. But it becomes a win for the people of the planet and the planet itself. I believe that this is a starting point for bridging the gap, between those who want and those who do not want.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:23:39
Those who believe and those who do not believe. For it is not required of us to sing from the same choir, nor is it required from us to agree with each other on everything. But where we can make sound progress that makes sense to you for whatever motivates you and makes sense to me, For whatever motivates me, then let us have action and progress on these matters that can advance us forward.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:24:10
The satellite technology exists today to show us exactly where the methane leaks are globally. And if we, therefore, can set some modest targets, Simon, for COP30, in recognizing that in the same way we were able to deal with the Montreal Protocol, and to deal with the damage to the ozone layer, and to change how we deal with air conditioners and all of the other things, successfully, that the world potentially can set itself a target.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:24:48
That by 2040, methane should be removed from the atmosphere and play the damaging role that it does. Now, I am not a scientist, but the scientists have advised me consistently that if that can happen, that we will actually see a reversal of half a degree in the world’s temperature. I ask us as we contemplate all else that we are doing here on sustainable energy, being a zealot will not help anyone, but being practical and finding points of cooperation.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:25:33
And let me be very clear, the views in those countries which I have spoken about are credibly committed to fighting climate, but they equally recognize that they need to finance their way to net zero. And if they are precluded from being at the table. with respect to the use of fossil fuels,
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they believe that they will be negatively affected. What then brings me to the second major point, that if we get the methane equation correct, it will actually buy us time to scale up decarbonizing technology for fossil fuels. If we get the time right, in the same way that we can send a man to the moon.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:26:35
and aspire now to send one to Mars, we can get the decarbonizing technology absolutely correct to be able to ensure that what is the little thing at the back of most of our minds in here doesn’t come true. And what is that? Simon Kopp is a wonderful… exercise of commitments, but commitments are not capacity. And if we cannot have a.
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real pathway that appreciates capacity to renewable energy and to just transition into clean energy, then fossil fuels will continue to be the driving force that brings development under the Sustainable Development Goals to people. And these are the complex issues that cannot be captured in a 60-second songbite and in a four-inch column story in a newspaper. I ask us to recognize that this, as we move into COP30, requires mature debate and conversation.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:27:50
As we reflect on the geopolitics of the world as it currently is, regardless of the current situation, we must recognize that we are in a time of conversation. And as we reflect on the geopolitics of the world as it currently is, And the utter and absolute vulnerability of populations to the climate crisis demands mature conversation. I hope that this gathering here and this site at Barbados, that just over 30 years ago was the site for the Barbados Program of Action, which led to a concrete, credible pathway for small island developing states development,
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just as it did 30 years ago, that today, Damiola, your energy and passion and commitment to provide sustainable energy for all can receive a much, much needed injection, not just of hope, but of commitment and maturity to allow us to achieve for the people in whose names we serve the opportunity for true and genuine development.
Hon. Mia Amor Mottley 00:28:56
I want to end by thanking my minister. I want to thank my minister of energy. who has been indefatigable and who has had to confront the very complex issues at a domestic level, way beyond the capacity of a small island developing state, but who has not surrendered nor retreated, and has therefore allowed us to continue to be on target.
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for meeting a very credible goal of net zero by 2035. I thank her and her team, her PS, and all of the technical people because these are the same people responsible for business Barbados, responsible for small business, responsible for commerce, responsible for so many other things, as is wont in small island developing states. So I end as I started. The only way she and the rest of us can survive.
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is through sharing and through partnership. And that, for those who are strong practitioners of religion, you will appreciate that that message of sharing, partnership and love has endured for millennia to keep humanity alive and to keep humanity believing that better can and must come. Thank you.