RPT: Barbados Calls On Global Polluters To Step Up Green Investment - Energy Minister

ABU DHABI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th January, 2020) The major industrial countries that contribute the most to the proliferation of global warming need to increase their green investments in small island nations, which appear to be the most vulnerable to climate change, Wilfred Arthur Abrahams, Barbados' minister of energy and water resources, told Sputnik.

"We require help from international donors and funders. What needs to be done we cannot accomplish by ourselves. We simply do not have the capacity to do it. We know what we need to do, we are going to use our scarce resources from our end," Abrahams said.

The minister added that it was crucial to acknowledge the fact that small island nations were in need of green funding to protect themselves from frequent natural disasters.

Barbados continues to strengthen its resilience to global warming and is enhancing its construction regulations, the official said.

"We are looking at changing our building codes in order to make ourselves more resilient. We are looking at infrastructural requirements for new buildings. Roofs must now be able to withstand storms of category 3-4. Previously, there never was any serious requirement for that," Abrahams added.

Recently, the Caribbean region and the southeast of the United States have been hit by a number of hurricanes. Dorian was the strongest this far north and east in the Atlantic basin. It descended on the Bahamas as a Category 5 storm in September, devastating the islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama and killing at least 70 people � almost 300 others are still missing.