ST. JOHN’S, Antigua, CMC – On Monday, the two most senior officials at the United Nations called for an end to the “two-speed financial world” that disadvantaged small island developing states (SIDS).
Addressing the opening of the Fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS 4), UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the world must not allow the loss of a single country or culture due to global warming or the continuation of a “two-speed financial world” where the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.
Guterres said that along with their exceptional beauty, be it the blue waters of the Caribbean, South Pacific, or Indian Ocean, SIDS are also exceptionally vulnerable.
“Your unique geography puts you at the mercy of climate chaos, rising sea levels, and land degradation. Climate change is an existential crisis for the entire human family. Still, SIDS is on the frontlines, he told the opening of the three-day conference under the theme “Charting the Course Towards Resilient Prosperity.”
He said reliant on imports and complex supply chains, the global shocks of record extreme weather, the tourism-destroying COVID pandemic, and regional wars; many SIDS have been left reeling in rough waters.
“The new Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS outlines steps to achieve resilient prosperity in partnership with the international community,” Guterres said, adding, “The United Nations stands with you” in battling the climate crisis, building resilient economies, safe and healthy societies, biodiversity conservation; “and to protect and sustainably use the ocean and its resources.”
The Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS (ABAS) is a renewed Declaration for Resilient Prosperity that sets out the sustainable development aspirations of small islands over the next decade and the support required from the international community to achieve them.
The 10-year initiative will harness the power of data to inform decision-making and ensure that the steps toward sustainable development are guided by accuracy and timeliness.
Guterres called on SIDS to make bold and sustainable investments, noting that they can’t succeed alone.
“The international community must support you – led by the countries with the most significant responsibility and capacity to deal with your challenges.
“SIDS are a test case for climate justice and financial justice,” Guterres said, noting that with the 1.5-degree limit in temperature rise already fast approaching, “we cannot accept the disappearance of any country or culture under the rising waves.”
“The idea that an entire island state could become collateral damage for profiteering by the fossil fuel industry or competition between major economies is simply obscene.”
SIDS has led the way for decades, serving as the world’s conscience on the climate crisis and making a difference in Paris in 2015.
“Today, we need your fierce voices more than ever,” said the Secretary-General, adding that.’
SIDS also needs financial justice, urging the leaders gathered here to insist that developed countries come through on pledges to double adaptation financing to allow proper defenses to be built to save island nations from destruction.
“You also have every right to call for new and significant contributions to the Loss and Damage Fund. Some of your countries have suffered damage worth more than half their GDP overnight in cyclones and storms”, Guterres said.
“But we are in a two-speed financial world. The rich go for cheap loans and easy money. But the global majority, the countries that need financing for development – are paying sky-high costs to borrow money.”
He said the millstone of debt is drowning SIDS economies as the ocean erodes the shore, adding, “This is creating a vicious cycle of stress and vulnerability and constraining your ability to invest in the SDGs.”
Guterres highlighted the need for an SDG Stimulus and deep reforms to the “outdated, dysfunctional and unjust global financial architecture,” putting the needs of developing countries first. He said the temptation to turn inwards and lower expectations must be avoided.
“That is not the SIDS way. Collaboration and mutual support will help SIDS weather both geopolitical and physical storms. And when you speak together, SIDS can make an almighty noise. I urge you to do so at this critical time for our planet and future.”
Meanwhile, in his address to the conference, President of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Dennis Francis said the long-awaited SIDS4 conference “offers a powerful once-in-a-decade platform” for action under the ABAS action program.
“If we do not undertake substantive reform of the international financial framework and the multilateral architecture – and their governance – developing countries, including SIDS, cannot unleash their full potential to mobilize much-needed resources to achieve the 2020 Agenda and its SDGs,” The Trinidad and Tobago diplomat told the conference.
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