PM, WFP official insist on urgent climate change action

Immediate and drastic steps are needed to avoid the dire consequences of climate change, Prime Minister Mia Mottley and head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) urged on Wednesday.

Speaking during the launch of the Caribbean Regional Logistics Hub and Centre of Excellence, Prime Minister Mottley insisted that it was the responsibility of world leaders to recognise the significance of the changing climate and implement measures to help mitigate the predicted negative effects on citizens.

“I want us to realise that the adaptation that is necessary is not just a fancy word. We have to change how we live to adapt to this new reality. We have to recognise that no matter how much money you have in any part of the world, no matter how strong you are as a nation or a company, you are not immune from certain realities,” said Mottley who was the recipient of the 2021 Champions of the Earth Award, the UN’s highest environmental honour.

“That is why global cooperation and global moral strategic leadership is needed more than ever at this point in time.

“It’s for the rest of the world to also appreciate that we have had enough signs and enough signals to know now that we have to adapt to these new realities,” the Prime Minister added.

WFP Executive Director David Beasley stressed that the increasing climate instability incidents seen in various nations around the world could no longer be ignored, as he pointed out that climate change has now overtaken wars as the number one cause of displaced people.

“This is quite a remarkable statement, but last year for the first time in our history we had more displaced people because of climate than war. So you begin to see how climate is going to create extraordinary chaos around the world, and the more that we can do in preparation, the more lives we will save and the more money we will save,” Beasley said.

“When we can preposition supplies like we did in the past few years, it’s been an extraordinary story and now we need to take it to a whole other level because we don’t see Mother Nature easing down any time soon,” he added. (SB)