SHARM EL SHEIKH (dpa-AFX) – The Prime Minister of the Caribbean island state of Barbados, Mia Mottley, called for more ambition in the fight against global warming in a passionate speech at the world climate conference. The countries of the world have the collective power to change, Mottley said at the opening of the summit segment in Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday. “We know how to find a vaccine within two years if a pandemic hits us. We know how to put a man on the moon – and now we’re putting a rover on Mars.” But the simple political will to decisively improve people’s lives still seems to be lacking.
In Sharm el Sheikh on the Red Sea, representatives from almost 200 countries will spend two weeks discussing how the fight against global warming can be intensified. Around 45,000 participants are registered.
In her speech to dozens of heads of state and government, Mottley questioned the existing global economic system. “This world still looks too much like it did when it was part of an imperialist empire,” Mottley said. The Global North borrows at interest rates of one to four percent, while the Global South borrows at 14 percent. “And then we wonder why the just energy partnerships don’t work.”
It is time to rethink the Bretton Woods system. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank were founded in this town in the USA in 1944. It’s time to remember that most of the countries in the plenary hall at the conference didn’t even exist at that point./jot/DP/stw