Pacific Island leaders say rich countries are not doing enough to control climate change

Photo Source: (AP: Sakchai Lalit). Retrieved from abcnews.go.com

Pacific Island leaders are criticizing rich countries for not doing enough to control climate change despite being responsible for much of the problem, and for profiting from loans provided to vulnerable nations to mitigate the effects.

Leaders and representatives from Pacific Island nations demanded at a U.N. climate change conference Monday in Bangkok that the world make more effort to put aside differences in combating the environmental impact, especially as their countries emerge from the economic devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prime Minister Mark Brown of the Cook Islands said the finance model for combatting climate change — giving out loans to reduce the impact — is “not the way to go” for countries in his region with such small populations that produce “inconsequential amounts of carbon emissions” but suffer the most from the effects.

He encouraged a shift toward grants or interest-free loans to help ease the financial burden on poorer countries.

“All we’re doing is adding debt to countries that have come out of COVID with increased debt, and to me it is actually quite offensive that we would be required to borrow money to build resilience, and to borrow from the very countries that are causing climate change,” he told The Associated Press.