Barbados wants polluters to pay–and they should
By Audrey Foss
“You are the problem. Your lifestyle is my problem,” Elizabeth Thompson said.
Commentary
The island of Barbados, with its population of roughly 300,000 people, is trying to get the world’s attention about the dangers of climate change. But few are listening.
“You are the problem. Your lifestyle is my problem,” said Elizabeth Thompson, a former Barbadian Ambassador to the United Nations. “But you believe that you have a right to your level of development and to pollute as much as you wish, even if it impacts me adversely.”
Barbados is a member of the Small Island Developing States, a group of predominantly Caribbean islands at the frontlines of the climate crisis. They have been telling the world that time is running short, but they’re being ignored by the major world powers.
International awareness of climate change has been a growing focus on the world stage, as its adverse effects on the various interconnected terrains, oceans, and climates that make up our Earth have grown dramatically. But the global response to the warming temperatures in the first quarter of the 21st century has been tepid at best in recognizing the urgency of the crisis.
Barbados has been making policies to help prevent practices that create adverse effects on the environment. It set a goal to be 100% renewable energy by 2035, a goal that has led to many Barbadians relying on solar-powered energy and solar water heaters.
But many major world powers that cause most pollution and carbon emissions have done too little to lessen their harmful practices. The United States, China and Russia alone account for over 50% of the carbon emissions since 1750. But they arguably take responsibility for none of the subsequent effects of climate change.
As a result, the world has witnessed a 1°C (1.8°F) average global temperature increase since 1880. The rate of increase in sea levels has almost doubled. And the mortality rate due to natural disasters for climate-vulnerable countries is more than 15 times higher than for the less vulnerable.
International cooperation on climate change has increased in recent years, mainly at the direction of the United Nations. In 2012, the U.N. adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which include “Climate Action.” The goal outlines how to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C (2.7°F) and to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
But, is this achievable?
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley believes it may not be. At the 2023 U.N. General Assembly, she asked the world, “Are we going to be too late for the SDGs?” She also asked the member states to “summon the determination to make fundamental governance changes.”
If the nations fail to act, the damage will be permanent.
The severity of the climate crisis can cause billions of dollars in damage every year to small Caribbean islands, including Barbados, that lack the power to influence the actions of the major polluters.
While Barbados is suffering from the effects of climate change, the main culprits are withdrawing from international agreements focused on solving the crisis by continuing their reliance on fossil fuels and increasing industrial outputs by any means necessary.
Barbados suffers while the big, powerful countries chase profits.
“We can’t control what happens in the United States,” Ambassador Thompson said, “and if there is policy in the U.S. that exacerbates impacts, we can't really mitigate against that. We have to adapt.”
Barbados is not only trying to adapt. It is also setting an example for how other nations should behave. But it’s also trying to make the rest of the world take the crisis seriously. The country wants its carbon footprint to be zero emissions by 2035.
“I would hope that by doing the right thing that I could persuade you that you could do the right thing as well,” Ambassador Thompson said.
Many climate activists say the biggest polluters should pay to fix the damage. I agree. We need to move from a victims’ pay system to a polluters’ pay.
“You should be willing to put money towards supporting our adaptation and mitigation efforts because you are the cause of our problem,” Ambassador Thompson said.
Mottley led the creation of the Bridgetown Initiative in 2022 to call for reforms in the international financial architecture as it is “unfit for purpose in a world characterized by unrelenting climate change.” The goal is to make a fairer lending system that can fund efforts to combat both climate change and economic inequality.
The interest rates on loans for many of the small developing islands are drastically higher than they are for developed countries. There’s a fear that developing nations won’t repay the loans because they are more prone to natural disasters, the same disasters that are getting worse in severity because of climate change.
“The financing that is available for developed countries comes with a 3 to 4 percent interest rate. But in the Caribbean Small Island Developing States, it comes with as high as a 14 percent interest rate,” Ambassador Thompson said.
But some countries, such as China, have begun to offer lower interest rates for the small islands. Barbados can only hope that the United States and other Western powers follow suit.
“The globe, in the wake of the images of immense destruction, tends to make wonderful promises,” Thompson said, “but delivers less than 10 percent of what they promise.”
Barbados, France and Kenya formed the U.N.-backed Global Solidarity Levies Task Force in 2022. They proposed a tax on polluters that is designed to raise billions of dollars per year to help fight climate change and provide aid for countries like Barbados that are in dire need. The taxes would apply to plastic use, international shipping, aviation and other industries with a high carbon footprint, among other areas.
The leaders and people of Barbados say that enough is enough. With every year that serious action is not taken to remedy the climate crisis, more human lives, food sources, biodiversity and much more are lost.