The cur­rent glob­al fi­nan­cial sys­tem is fail­ing to ad­dress the ur­gent cli­mate and de­vel­op­ment cri­sis im­pact­ing small is­land de­vel­op­ing states, ac­cord­ing to Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and In­vest­ment in Bar­ba­dos, Patrick Mc­Cask­ie.

Speak­ing at the two-day work­shop Un­lock­ing Cli­mate Fi­nance: Build­ing a Sus­tain­able Cli­mate Ar­chi­tec­ture for Bar­ba­dos, Mc­Cask­ie stressed that ex­ist­ing cli­mate fi­nance com­mit­ments “fall crit­i­cal­ly short of the amount need­ed to ad­dress glob­al chal­lenges.”

He not­ed that in­ad­e­quate fund­ing ham­pers world lead­ers’ ef­forts to tack­le cli­mate vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties in their re­spec­tive coun­tries.

“World lead­ers and ne­go­tia­tors at the Unit­ed Na­tions COP 29 Con­fer­ence, work­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty to build a green world, are grap­pling with the chal­lenges of set­ting a new cli­mate fi­nance tar­get to meet the tril­lion-dol­lar cost of help­ing low-in­come na­tions adapt to cli­mate change and build re­silience,” Mc­Cask­ie said at the work­shop host­ed by the Cli­mate Fi­nance Ac­cess Net­work (CFAN).

“Fol­low­ing COP 29, for ex­am­ple, there was over­whelm­ing con­sen­sus among world lead­ers and ne­go­tia­tors that sub­stan­tial fund­ing is need­ed to help low-in­come coun­tries adapt to cli­mate change.

“Di­vi­sions, how­ev­er, re­main over who should bear the fi­nan­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and the num­bers for this new cli­mate fi­nance tar­get are enor­mous. For cer­tain, tack­ling the in­ten­si­ty of the im­pacts of cli­mate change re­quires tril­lions of dol­lars – a cost far be­yond the reach of poor na­tions – ac­cord­ing to nu­mer­ous ex­perts and re­ports,” he added.

Ref­er­enc­ing a Cli­mate Pol­i­cy Ini­tia­tive Re­port, Mc­Cask­ie point­ed out that glob­al cli­mate fi­nanc­ing stands at ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$1.3 tril­lion an­nu­al­ly. How­ev­er, he ar­gued that cur­rent fi­nanc­ing mod­els—large­ly based on loans—on­ly ex­ac­er­bate the fi­nan­cial bur­den on de­vel­op­ing na­tions, in­creas­ing bor­row­ing costs and lim­it­ing their abil­i­ty to im­ple­ment ef­fec­tive cli­mate re­silience strate­gies.

He al­so ac­knowl­edged the com­plex­i­ties of nav­i­gat­ing cli­mate fi­nance and com­mend­ed CFAN for as­sist­ing Bar­ba­dos in de­vel­op­ing project pro­pos­als across crit­i­cal sec­tors such as agri­cul­ture, wa­ter, and house­hold re­silience.

Mean­while, Di­rec­tor of the Roofs to Reefs Pro­gramme in the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice, Ri­car­do Mar­shall, said much work had been done by Prime Min­is­ter Mia Amor Mot­t­ley and her team re­gard­ing the cli­mate cri­sis and sourc­ing fi­nanc­ing to shore up the coun­try’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties.

He added that Bar­ba­dos was on the front­lines of the cli­mate cri­sis and called for a re­form of the glob­al fi­nan­cial ar­chi­tec­ture as a mat­ter of ur­gency, since the cur­rent struc­ture “does not serve our needs”.

CFAN’s Ad­vi­sor to CARI­COM De­vel­op­ment Fund for Spe­cial Projects as­signed to Bar­ba­dos, Chemo­ra Mc Knee, said the two-day work­shop was care­ful­ly de­signed to ad­dress the re­al­i­ties and needs of the coun­try.

“Cli­mate Fi­nance is not a one-time ef­fort. It re­quires con­tin­u­ous learn­ing, adap­ta­tion, and ca­pac­i­ty strength­en­ing. Our dis­cus­sions … will serve as a foun­da­tion for on­go­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion be­yond this work­shop.

“Cli­mate change de­mands in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tions and a new way of think­ing. As Pe­ter Druck­er wise­ly said, ‘the great­est dan­ger in times of tur­bu­lence is not the tur­bu­lence it­self, but to act with yes­ter­day’s log­ic’. And I would like to change the word­ing for that to­day, the great­est dan­ger in times of a cli­mate cri­sis is not the cli­mate cri­sis it­self, but to act with yes­ter­day’s log­ic,” Mc Knee em­pha­sised.

She con­tin­ued: “This is why we are here to­day to break the bar­ri­ers in cli­mate fi­nance ac­cess, strength­en in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty, and de­sign strate­gies that re­flect ur­gency and com­plex­i­ty of our re­al­i­ty. The chal­lenges we face are evolv­ing, and so must our ap­proach. We do not have the lux­u­ry of time, nor can we re­ly on out­dat­ed mod­els for fi­nanc­ing our re­silience.”

BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos, Mar 22, CMC –

CMC/ed/2025