UN Secretary Welcomes Barbados' Efforts To Fight Climate Change

During a visit to Barbados’s Folkestone Marine Park and Museum on Monday, United Nations (UN) Secretary Antonio Guterres welcomed Prime Minister Mia Mottley's efforts to fight climate change on her country, whose coastline is affected by soil erosion and degradation.

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“For small island countries, adapting and building resilience to climate change is not a luxury but an urgent priority,” Guterres stated and urged donors and multilateral development banks to allocate at least 50 percent of their climate support towards this vital task.

He arrived in Barbados on Saturday to inaugurate the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD-15), in which he pressed for commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by mid-century through measures such as phasing out subsidies for fossil fuels.

In line with the Paris Agreement on climate change, Guterres also urged the international community to minimize global temperature rise and reminded developed countries of their decade-old promise to provide US$100 billion annually in climate finance to support developing countries.

On Tuesday, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned that the intensification of natural disasters due to climate change means a new crisis in access to water resources. Around 3,600 million people had inadequate access to water at least one month in 2018, and over 5,000 million people will be affected by water scarcity until 2050.

"Rising temperatures are generating changes in rainfall, resulting in variations in agricultural seasons, which impacts food security, health, and well-being of the world population," the OMM stated.

"The world is not prepared for these extreme events since water-related risk management, monitoring, prediction, and early warning systems do not exist or are inadequate in 60 percent of the 187 UN member States,” it added.