Post-Factum Compensation Not Enough To Help Island States Resist Global Warming - Barbados

Post-Factum Compensation Not Enough to Help Island States Resist Global Warming - Barbados

The Barbadian minister of energy and water resources, Wilfred Arthur Abrahams, told Sputnik in an interview that the UN-sponsored Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage would be insufficient in helping island nations overcome the challenges posed by climate change

ABU DHABI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th January, 2020) The Barbadian minister of energy and water resources, Wilfred Arthur Abrahams, told Sputnik in an interview that the UN-sponsored Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage would be insufficient in helping island nations overcome the challenges posed by climate change.

Participants of the 25th UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) in mid-December failed to reach an agreement on the mechanism, which is designed to issue compensation for climate change-related losses sustained by particularly vulnerable developing countries, such as Barbados.

"Compensation suggests something that comes after the fact ... We need capacity building, we need financial help as compensation after the fact is not sufficient. Our government has taken the position that we are going to go fossil fuel free by 2030. That's a bold step. It probably will not make much of a difference globally, but it is us saying that we are doing our part. For the large industrial countries to negotiate and quibble over Dollars when we are talking about lives is insulting to me," Abrahams said.

The minister added that climate change had started to affect not only the traditionally vulnerable countries but even those that had never experienced large-scale natural disasters before, referring to Storm Brendan that hit Ireland earlier this week.

"If the weather patterns are now doing that, it means nobody is safe. So, all who are sitting comfortably and making decisions based on the impact on the small island developing states need to actually pay attention because the impact would be felt by them very shortly," Abrahams stated.

COP25 came in the run-up to the 2020 deadline for countries to submit their new, more ambitious, climate action plans in pursuant to the 2015 Paris Agreement.