Global Citizen’s next campaign: Reform climate financing
April 27, 2023 -NEW YORK (AP) — Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley repeated her call Thursday to rewrite the rules of global development banks to relieve the debts of middle and lower income countries and increase funding for climate adaptation.
“It cannot be easier for a young person to get a 30 year mortgage than for our country to get development funds to save the people and to save the planet,” said Mottley, who has championed an agenda to reform the global banks that have provided funding to less wealthy countries since the end of World War II.
The actor Hugh Jackman joined her and the cofounder and CEO of the nonprofit Global Citizen, Hugh Evans, at the opening of the Global Citizen NOW summit in New York, which brings together politicians, business and philanthropic leaders and celebrities to try to channel the support of individuals from around the world toward change.
“There is a $16 billion funding gap that the world’s wealthiest nations promised to the world’s poorest nations but haven’t delivered,” said Evans. “That creates a trust deficit. If you don’t have trust you don’t make progress.”
He was referring to a 2009 pledge to provide $100 billion in financing by 2020 to help developing countries adapt to global warming and mitigate further rises in temperature. In 2023, those wealthiest nations have still not delivered the full amount.
