Blinken pledges support for CARICOM to tackle climate crisis, access to int’l finance
/ Our Today
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US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, says his country is committed to fostering genuine partnerships with Caribbean leaders to address climate-related challenges and expand the region’s access to international finance.
Blinken, who was speaking during discussions with CARICOM heads of government at the 45th Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM, on Wednesday (July 5) in Trinidad and Tobago, said that the United States has a responsibility to address the climate crisis being faced by developing countries.
“We know that most of the communities being hardest hit by climate change have done the least to contribute to it. We recognise that as the world’s second-biggest emitter, and the number one emitter historically – currently the second-biggest emitter – we have a unique responsibility, the United States, to address this problem,” said the Secretary of State.
According to Blinken, the US has been working to prevent a climate catastrophe by dedicating resources to meet climate targets in accordance with the Paris Agreement, an international treaty on climate change.
“President Biden returned the United States to the Paris Agreement – one of the very first things he did when he took office – he enhanced our national pledges, and he’s dedicating unprecedented resources to meet the targets through the Inflation Reduction Act. This is by far, as I think you all know, the largest commitment to tackling the climate crisis in history by any country anywhere.”
—US SECRETARY OF STATE ANTHONY BLINKEN
Blinken, who serves as the Biden Administration’s chief foreign affairs adviser, added that each country of the Group of Seven (G7), has adopted plans that, if implemented, will help to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The G7 is an intergovernmental forum that comprises the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.
Building climate resilience and adaptation
Blinken says his country is also seeking to build greater resilience and adaption to climate change while accelerating the region’s shift to clean energy.
“This is the driving focus between the partnership we established, the US‑Caribbean Partnership to Address the Climate Crisis 2030 – a programme that we launched last year to try to make energy systems cleaner, more resilient, and more affordable – like geothermal projects in Dominica and Saint Kitts and Nevis, solar micro-grids in St. Lucia, electric vehicles in Barbados and Jamaica and Suriname, just to name a few examples. With the additional US$20 million that Vice-President Harris announced in climate funding just last month in The Bahamas, we’ll continue to build together on those efforts.”
—US SECRETARY OF STATE ANTHONY BLINKEN
Another step being taken to strengthen disaster preparedness is through the improvement of warning systems, the development of risk maps to predict areas that are most likely to be hit by storms and helping countries develop new tools to adapt to emerging challenges.
Access to international finance
Blinken indicated that several Caribbean heads of government have been calling for greater access to finance to tackle climate challenges, an issue that he and the Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen have committed to work with CARICOM to tackle.
“We said that we would press financial institutions to allow countries to defer debt payments in the event of climate shocks and natural disasters. At our urging, the World Bank agreed to offer debt-deferment clauses in their loans by 2025. We’ve made a similar commitment in the United States. We’re urging other lenders to step up with us. And we also know that with new leadership at the World Bank this is an intense focus for that institution,” he said.
Other areas highlighted by the secretary of state to strengthen the region’s access to international finance is through fostering partnerships, ranging from micro-loans, to entrepreneurs, to macro-financing for infrastructure.
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