Climate Change Summit

Caribbean Consulates

Anguilla

845 Third Avenue New York, N.Y. 10022 Tel: 212-745-0200

Antigua & Barbuda

305 East 47th Street, Suite 6A New York, N.Y. 10020 Tel: 212-541-4117

The Bahamas

231 East 46th Street New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-421-6420

Barbados

820 Second Avenue, 5th Floor New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-551-4325

Belize

675 Third Avenue, Suite 1911 New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-593-0999

Dominica

800 Second Avenue, Suite 400H New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-949-0853

Dominican Republic

1500 Broadway, Suite 410 New York, N.Y. 10036 Tel: 212-599-8478

Grenada

685 Third Avenue, Suite 1101 New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-599-0301

Guyana

308 West 38th Street New York, N.Y. 10018 Tel: 212-947-5119

Haiti

815 Second Avenue,6th Floor New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-697-9767

Jamaica

767 Third Avenue, 2nd Floor New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-935-9000

Martinique

444 Madison Avenue, 16th Floor New York, N.Y. 10022 Tel: 212-838-6887

Montserrat

845 Third Avenue New York, N.Y. 10022 Tel: 212-745-0200

Panama

1212 Avenue of the Americas, 20th Floor New York, N.Y. 10036 Tel: 212-840-2450

St. Kitts & Nevis

414 East 75th Street, 5th Floor New York, N.Y. 10021 Tel: 212-535-5521

St. Lucia

800 Second Avenue, 9th Floor New York, N.Y. 10007 Tel: 212-697-9360

St. Maarten

675 Third Avenue, Suite 1807 New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 800-786-2278

St. Vincent & The Grenadines

801 Second Avenue, 21st Floor New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-687-4981

Trinidad & Tobago

125 Maiden Lane, 4th Floor New York, N.Y. 10038 Tel: 212-682-7272

AOSIS Statement at US Leaders Summit on Climate Change Organized by President Joe Biden

President Biden, I thank you for convening this very important gathering to address the most significant threat facing our one planet and our one humanity. We are grateful that the United States and China have pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and we look forward to swift action in their transitioning into carbon neutral economies. We urge other major emitting nations to follow this vital example set by the United States and China. We remind that the 44 members of the Alliance of Small Island States(AOSIS), through no fault of their own, confront the greatest threats of Climate Change. The 44 AOSIS members, are the least contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Collectively, they emit just 1.5 percent of the emissions of industrialized nations, and many of them have already begun to roll out ambitious programs to reduce their small carbon footprint, particularly in renewable energy. They made ambitious national commitments at COP 21 in Paris and they remain passionately committed to implementing them within their means. However, the harmful effects of Climate Change are growing, and the cost of mitigation and recovery is being counted in human lives and livelihoods. The economic situation of our countries was already grave before the COVID-19 pandemic. It is now dire, particularly for tourism dependent nations. We are literally teetering on the edge of despair.

PM Hon. Gaston Browne Photo: OECS

Over the years, the debt of small states has risen to unsustainable levels, because of repeated borrowings to rebuild and recover from continuous debilitation by natural disasters, arising from climate change. Mechanisms, introduced by International Financial Institutions (IFIs), for addressing the looming debt crisis are insufficient. For some small states, even these inadequate instruments are denied, because of the false criterion of middle and high per capita income which ignores the huge vulnerabilities that small states face. It is urgent that policy makers of the IFIs, instruct that more determining criteria of small size, resource constraints and vulnerabilities, be taken fully into account for concessional financing. Colleagues, repayment of official debt by small states, including to the Paris Club, is near impossible in the prevailing parlous circumstances. A permanent solution to the looming debt crisis is compelling and necessary. This requires action to design new and enhanced financial instruments and to provide debt relief, including debt cancellation, debt suspension, debt rescheduling, debt restructuring and debt-for-climate swaps. Worsening Climate conditions are uprooting workers from previously productive sectors and causing a crisis of emigration and refugees. This, too, must be reversed in the global interest. We should acknowledge the interconnectedness of human civilization; that small states are also markets, providing revenues and employment for larger and richer nations. Every major country benefits perennially from trade surpluses with small states. To continue to be viable markets, to remain viable democracies, to uphold human rights and the rule of law; and to provide economic conditions that discourage refugees, we need the following: •Urgent access to COVID-19 vaccines, which should be prioritized based on vulnerability. •Immediate action to cut greenhouse gas emissions. •A program of debt forgiveness and debt rescheduling •Concessional financing that takes account of vulnerabilities and, •Funding to compensate for damage, to help reconstruct our economies and to assist in building resilience. It is our hope that a spirit of cooperation will emerge from this gathering of 40 that can be taken to Glasgow, to inspire a program of action for small states at COP26. Thank you.l

Derek Chauvin Trial and Verdict Will Fuel Continued Social Transformation and Racial Reckoning of America’s Democracy

BY DR PATRICK GRAHAM

There was a distant emptiness in the Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s eyes as he looked away while rocking his knee deeper into the neck and vertebrae of George Floyd. The look of Chauvin during the killing of Floyd reminded many African Americans and introduced to others the casual disregard too many Black people encounter in our criminal and judicial systems. Chauvin’s act and trial are yet another test of the resilient hope for democracy Black patriots have demonstrated for themselves and others during transformative moments in our country. As the trial of Chauvin approaches its second week, many African Americans are acting jurors in another case deeply entrenched with Chauvin’s fate and the empty look we recognize, the belief in our democracy’s concepts of justice and inclusion for all Americans. Floyd’s case, and others such as Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, are part of a Black experience at the center of our democracy’s victories and struggles with justice and inclusion. No other social group has been as deeply involved with challenging America to live up to its democratic principles and opening the doors of democracy for others during critical transformative moments in our history. For example, during the struggles to abolish slavery and Reconstruction following the Civil War, African American desires for education and freedom led to voter rights movements, women’s full citizenship movements, and public schools in the shadows of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. The modern civil rights movement spawned the student movement, the gay liberation movement, new feminists, and others during the 1960s and 70s. Today’s Black Lives Matter movement has grown out of the protest traditions and ambivalence of Black suffering, discontent, and optimism for change. These historical and present desires for democracy are part of an African American resilience that influences our civic and political landscape for all people. Floyd’s death and Chauvin’s trial is a test of that resilience in the context of this generation’s transformative moment and may further influence the trajectory of our democracy. There is no doubt that Floyd’s murder and others catalyzed the protests of 2020 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. They also created a transformative mood that was less patient and larger than freedom movements of the past. We have witnessed this impatience and new determination in debates over resourcing of police, higher voter participation, questioning of immunities provided to officials in our criminal and judicial systems, corporate attention to racial equity, and dialogues across social and mainstream media platforms. Chauvin’s fate may call into question the authenticity of American desires for true equity and justice and influence the path our current transformative moment and activists take going forward. In my opinion, any verdict in Chauvin’s case will provide fuel for a continued transformation and racial reckoning of America’s democracy, no matter the spin or narrative. Even as the defense uses old illogical tactics of questioning Floyd’s character and opioid use to blame the victim, woke Americans are too familiar with the narrative's falsity. Interestingly, the common description for white opioid users is empathy and victimization, which further illustrates the disregard for Black lives and Floyd’s in particular. I digress back to Chauvin’s fate. A guilty verdict means we will have to consider the immunities afforded to law enforcement and officers of the court as instruments of our democracy. Any other ruling will call into question those same immunities and our faith in democracy with harsher realities. Ultimately, African American liberation advocates and our allies must still hold America’s systems to the highest democratic standards. Our Black intellect, hope, and resiliency are gifts we owe to ourselves, which continue to create possibilities for others as well. l

Editorial credit: Johnny Silvercloud / Shutterstock.com TEAM My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. —Hosea 4:6

Publisher I.Q. INC.

Managing Editor & Editor-in-Chief Pearl Phillip

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Dr. Patrick Graham is a public and social sector leader with over 20 years of executive-level and equity policy experience. During his professional career, he served as the President and CEO of the Martin Luther King Center on Long Island, Urban League of Central Carolinas, Charlotte Works-Workforce Development Board. He is the recipient of several awards, including The Distinguished Leader and Advocate for Change Award, National Made Man Foundation, Catalyst Humanitarian of the Year, Uptown Magazine, Citizen of the Year (North Carolina and South Carolina), Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc, National Urban League Innovative C.E.O., Community Person of the Year, Long Beach Herald, and others.

Listen to Dr Graham’s interview at www.pppradio.nyc