Prime Minister Mia Mottley delivers a sobering speech at the opening of the Leaders Summit at the UN Climate Change Conference, COP-27, being held in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt this week.

"We are in the country that build pyramids. We know what it is to remove slavery from our civilisation. We know what it is to be able to find a vaccine within two years when a pandemic hits us. We know what it is to put a man on the moon and now we're putting a rover on Mars. We know what it is... But the simple political will that is necessary, not just to come here and make promises, but to deliver on them. And to make a definable difference in the lives of the people who we have a responsibility to serve, seems still not to be capable of being produced."

Watch her speech in full:
‍

‍

Meanwhile, Devex reports that Prime Minister Mottley is "quietly confident" that her proposals to reform the international financial system to better serve crisis-affected lower-income countries will be adopted, and suggested to Devex that her agenda may have backing from one of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations. This refers to the Bridgetown Agenda, released in September 2022, calling for reform to the global financial architecture with three demands:

• Provide emergency liquidity
• Expand multilateral lending to governments by US$1 trillion
• Activate private sector savings for climate mitigation and fund reconstruction after a climate disaster through new multilateral mechanisms

You can read and download the full Bridgetown Agenda from Barbados GIS.