Guyana Named as Champions of Climate Transparency as Barbados Makes Call New Funding Initiative

BAKU, Azerbaijan - Guyana is the only Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country that has been recognized as champions of climate transparency.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley addressing CCOP 29The United Nations Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said Guyana is among nine countries gien the honour after submitting their Biennial Transparency Reports (BTRs).

He told the ongoing UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) that apart from Guyana,   the other countries are Andorra, Panama, Japan, Spain, Türkiye, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands and Singapore.

Countries have until the end of the year to submit their BTRs with Stiell saying that the nine countries that have done so have set an example for others to follow

The BTRs are described as a powerful enabling tool for all governments, building a robust evidence base to strengthen climate policies over time, and helping to identify financing needs and opportunities.

A recent report  from UN Climate Change shows that current national climate plans (NDCs) are still “dangerously off-track” to avert the crippling effects of climate change on every country and every economy.
The next round of national climate plans, due from every country next year, must deliver a dramatic step up in climate action and ambition.

“NDCs 3.0 will play a crucial role in determining if the world will achieve the Paris Agreement’s objective of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C, while delivering stronger economies and societies,” the UN said, adding that in this context, the UN system and other partners are organising a series of events at COP29 to catalyse the delivery of “ambitious, timely, and implementable NDCs 3.0”.

Meanwhile, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley is calling for new global levies that could raise up to US$690 billion annually to tackle the climate crisis.

Addressing the COP 29, Mottley outlined a seven-point action plan to reverse the current trajectory of a planet she said that is hurtling towards catastrophe.

“If we put a five US dollar per ton on CO2 for fossil fuel extraction, we can raise US$210 billion a year. If we put US$100 per ton on CO2 for shipping, we can raise in excess of US$80 billion a year; and we have not addressed aviation, or indeed, the elephant in the room, 0.1 per cent on all bonds and stocks that can raise us in excess of US$400 billion”.

Mottley warned that extreme weather events require “a serious commitment at the COP29 with respect to new collective quantified goals” to reverse the current trajectory and fund mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage.

She told the world leaders assembled at the COP 29 that ends on November 22 that the Loss and Damage Fund that she championed at the last climate conference has only attracted US$700 million.

“And this is despite the numerous crises besetting small island developing states (SIDS), and indeed, in our own region, Hurricane Beryl, which has caused serious damage to countries from housing to public infrastructure and indeed from agriculture to fisheries in my own country.”

Mottley outlined seven steps to be taken urgently tackle the climate crisis,  beginning with proper capitalisation of the under-funded Loss and Damage Fund, and the SIDS window in the Global Environment Facility’s Special Climate Change Fund, which she noted remains un-funded.

She said developing countries must also have access to cheaper, longer-term capital, in circumstances where they can scale up investments for adaptation as well as loosening the economic constraints on vulnerable countries by advancing financial reforms in Bridgetown Initiative 3.0.

“We must change the rules of the game, shock-proof vulnerable economies, and indeed, review debt sustainability while at the same time augmenting resources,” Mottley said, insisting also that rich countries deliver on their financial pledges.

“We must ensure, time and again, that the commitments made, whether for 0.7 per cent of GNI (gross national income) or indeed, the US$100 billion, or recently, the US$30 billion with respect to biodiversity that these are met. We must have transparency and accountability on the part of everyone.”

Mottley told the delegates that it is important for  every COP conference to make progress “irrespective of the geopolitical dynamics.

“May we ensure that our ambitions are not only high, but our actions mimic the ambitions which we have if we are to ensure that our people are not to be the victims of this awful climate crisis.”