Mia Mottley at COP29. Photographer: Hollie Adams/Bloomberg. Retrieved from bloomberg.com
More expensive business class flights, levies on stock and bond trades and a $5-a-ton tax on fossil fuel emissions. These are just some of the ideas being pitched by influential leaders at the COP29 summit as a way to raise much needed cash to help the world battle climate change.
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who has emerged as one of the leading international voices on climate finance, is spearheading efforts to find new funding for developing nations and small island states. The task has become more urgent as extreme weather risks rise and it becomes clear that these countries can’t rely solely on the goodwill of their richer peers.
At COP29, Mottley once again called for countries to further examine innovative sources of finance. She said that placing levies on shipping companies, airlines and some financial trades, as well as taxing fossil fuel extraction, could raise at least $350 billion a year — more than three times what rich nations mobilize annually through public sources.