Vulnerable economies must be supported with finance and practical aid to find long term solutions, says Jorge Moreira da Silva of Unops

The world has a “moral responsibility” to support the fight for survival being faced by small island states, according to a leading UN agency chief.

Ahead of the fourth annual conference of small island developing states (Sids) being held in Antigua and Barbuda this week, Jorge Moreira da Silva, the executive director of the (Unops), called for recognition of the problems faced by what he called “some of the most vulnerable economies in the world” who contributed less than 1% to global carbon emissions.

“Because of their unique circumstances and vulnerabilities, Sids face higher levels of debt distress than other developing countries,” said da Silva. “Over 40% of Sids are now on the edge of, or are already grappling with, unsustainable levels of debt. And with every major disaster, private external debt in Sids tends to rise. Between 2016 and 2020, Sids have paid in debt service 18 times more than what they received as climate finance.

  • Flying SquidM
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    287 months ago

    The world had the moral responsibility to never let the climate crisis happen in the first place, so we’ve seen how far moral responsibility has gotten us.

  • @[email protected]
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    107 months ago

    Which do you think will become the first famous climate refugees? Residents of small island nations losing land and safety, or heat affected landmasses that become uninhabitable due to extreme temperatures and/or wet bulb conditions?

  • DominusOfMegadeus
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    97 months ago

    I think the oil corporations and others that destroy the environment have a greater responsibility

    • @[email protected]
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      47 months ago

      Yes, and our western economies and democracies are best situated to make them pay. Those bastards are the rotted flower that bloomed from our corpus

  • @SlopppyEngineer
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    97 months ago

    …and it comes right after our fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.

  • xep
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    87 months ago

    “Moral responsibility” isn’t going to affect the various amoral, systemic causes of the climate crisis.

  • Riddick3001
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    27 months ago

    That would be great if economies would chip in. Idk, USA, EU has some plans iirc, Saudi, Chinese , India etc.

    And the Billionaires worldwide as well , they pack a wallet the size of some countries.