Barbados’ Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary for Climate Change, Law of the Sea, and SIDS, Senator Elizabeth Thompson. (FP)
The Barbados Implementation Modalities (BIM) have officially been finalised and operationalised at the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD’s) 7th Meeting in Manila, The Philippines.
The BIM, which was launched at the Fifth Meeting of the Board of the FRLD in Barbados in April this year, represent the general rules for financing loss and damage, and operations and disbursement processes for the FRLD’s first stage.
In her address, Barbados’ Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary with responsibility for Climate Change, Small Island Developing States and Law of the Sea, Senator Elizabeth Thompson, first commended board members for their commitment to the cause, who “stood their ground” to see the operationalisation of BIM come to fruition.
“I have to pay tribute not just to this Board but to those who have laboured in the field for years and brought us to this moment. To those who stood their ground and kept working, today is your day and I thank you.
“I come from a region where loss and damage means lives and livelihoods; where societies become unstable, communities collapse, and economies come to the precipice of disaster. So today, it is not just my joy that this fund, and the first phase of its operations will bear the name the BIM – the Barbados Implementation Modalities, based on what we agreed on…”, she stated.
The Ambassador, who described the scale of devastation from Hurricane Melissa on Jamaica as “apocalyptic”, urged the gathering to “fill the fund” at a scale that is “commensurate with the level of damage and level of suffering caused by extreme weather events”.
“We also need to locate this fund in the context of a wider reform of finance for climate and in the context of adaptation financing which is the priority need of Small Island Developing states…if we do that we really would have made a difference,” she emphasised.
Senator Thompson told the audience to see themselves as the “climate coalition of the committed”: “Committed to the reality of climate change, committed to acknowledging the science of climate change, committed to recognising the scale and damage of climate change and committed to finding the finance needed to address climate change – particularly loss and damage.”
The Ambassador encouraged attendees to remember, in the midst of celebrating the milestone, that, “there are still countries standing on the frontlines of climate change, standing on the precipice of crisis, needing our continuing works and efforts for transformation and for change and for improving life and livelihoods”. “What they’re suffering is not of their causing,” she maintained.
Author: Dionne Best
Source: https://gisbarbados.gov.bb/blog/barbados-implementation-modalities-bim-are-mobilised/
