Hanley Says Vulnerability Must Shape Climate Financing

BASSETERRE — Acting Prime Minister The Hon. Dr. Geoffery Hanley says small island developing states should not be judged mainly on income per capita when they seek affordable financing, and that vulnerability must be part of the calculation.

Dr. Hanley made the remarks on the government’s In Focus program, which aired Wednesday. He appeared with Minister of Sustainable Development The Hon. Joyelle Clarke. Both were part of the Federation’s delegation to the 81st UN General Assembly in New York two weeks earlier.

The delegation went to New York to reinforce the case that small island developing states cannot continue to be judged primarily by the income per capita when determining access to affordable financing.

“The vulnerability must become part of that calculation,” Hanley said, adding that the call also came from other Caribbean delegations.

“So it was a oneness,” Dr. Hanley said.

Clarke said access to finance is the central challenge for small island developing states. She said the federation has the will to change and is making its own adjustments, and that its commitment to 61 percent renewable energy by 2035 in its nationally determined contributions “can only be done through international partnership.”

That is why the global financial architecture has to adjust. She recalled Hanley’s remark that GDP “does not respect a hurricane,” and said storms do not take a country’s GDP per capita into account.

“The reality is we need to access more finance and we need to have an increase in the dedicated funds that get to small islands,” Clarke said.

She said less than 25 percent of global climate financing reaches small island developing states. And, when money does arrive, it is “watered down in bureaucracy and consultant fees and overseas fees and implementation fees and then there’s nothing on the ground.”

“So we need people to partner, not pity,” Clarke said.

International partners have shown that they see the Federation serious about its commitments. She named the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the Global Center for Climate Mobility, which she described as partners on the climate mobility platform and the Rising Nations Institute. She said they are seeing the commitment in the federation’s policy, its changes to legislation, and how it budgets, including more emphasis on social interventions that respond to a changing climate.