Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Environment, National Beautification and Fisheries, Santia Bradshaw, has called on developed countries to honour their commitments on biodiversity finance.
She told the High Level Segment of the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP17) in Yerevan, Armenia, that small island developing states cannot be expected to deliver global targets without the resources to achieve them.
Addressing ministers and heads of delegation on Tuesday, Bradshaw noted that biodiversity finance is estimated to have reached US$34.2 billion, surpassing the annual target of US$20 billion, but remains far short of the US$200 billion a year identified under the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
“The world does not lack biodiversity commitments. What we lack is the financing and capacity to turn those commitments into action.”
She added that for Barbados, the gap between ambition and implementation was not a lack of political will, but a shortage of financial, human and technical resources.
Bradshaw outlined the pressures Barbados and its Caribbean neighbours already carry. These include recurring Sargassum seaweed influxes that foul beaches and disrupt fisheries and tourism, ocean acidification, plastic pollution and warming seas that are pushing fish away from traditional grounds, so that local fishers travel farther at greater cost for less certain catches.
“Climate action is our lived reality,” she said. “This is precisely why biodiversity finance must be increased, accessible and timely.”
The High Level Segment ended yesterday at the Meridian Expo and Event Centre in Yerevan. (PR)