BARBADOS’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley delivered an important speech at the opening ceremony of COP26 – just weeks before the country is due to sever its ties from the Queen as a sovereign
Ms Mottley was given a position of prominence at the opening ceremony of COP26, the climate change summit taking place in Glasgow. The Barbadian leader spoke passionately about the risks Caribbean countries such as hers are facing with the global rise of temperatures.
Addressing world leaders, she urged them to “try harder” when making decisions to stave off climate change.
She said: “1.5C is what we need to stay alive – two degrees is a death sentence for the people of Antigua and Barbuda, for the people of the Maldives, for the people of Dominica and Fiji, for the people of Kenya and Mozambique – and yes, for the people of Samoa and Barbados.
“We do not want that dreaded death sentence and we’ve come here today to say ‘try harder, try harder’.
“Because our people, the climate army, the world, the planet, needs our action now – not next year, not in the next decade.”
The UK prime minister opened COP26 by comparing the attempts by world leaders to solve climate change to James Bond being strapped to a “doomsday device” at the end of the titular movies.
Boris Johnson said the tragedy was that “this is not a movie” and climate change, or the “doomsday device” is real.
World leaders are at the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow, hosted by the UK, amid mounting concerns that countries are not doing enough to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases, which have caused average global temperatures to rise.
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley has delivered a stark warning on the effects of a rise in global temperature on countries like hers at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow.
Ms Mottley encouraged other countries to commit to fighting climate change, saying that a two degree rise in temperature would be a “death sentence” for island nations, due to rising sea levels and more extreme weather.
Asking for urgent action, she said “we can work with whoever is ready to go, because the train is ready to leave.”