Lack of Trust Among Developed Countries Threatens Global Sustainability, Says Belizean Foreign Minister

UNITED NATIONS – Belize Saturday lamented the lack of trust among developed countries noting that trust and solidarity are in diminishing supply at a time when the capacity of planet earth to sustain human life is in grave peril.

Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Immigration Minister, Eamon Courtenay, said the developed countries would keep to their promises for a number of issues ranging from climate change, to a reform of the international financial architecture were all but an illusion.

He said targets set as far back as 1970 have never been met and by at least one estimate this failure has resulted in US$6.5 trillion in undelivered aid to developing countries.

Courtenay recalled that at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP 15), developed countries committed to mobilise US$100 billion per year by 2020 for climate action. “That commitment has yet to be met. Consequently US$381.6 billion in public climate finance has been foregone,” he said, noting also the commitment made in 2015 in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda to phase out fossil fuel subsidies has been completely ignored.

The Belizean foreign minister told the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has since noted that fossil fuel subsidies had risen seven trillion US dollars last year.

“Despite their strident calls for respecting human rights, the Global North remains outside the Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers; deaths and inhumane treatment of migrants at the southern borders of the Western world continue with impunity.”

Courtenay said another form of the mistrust came in the hoarding of COVID-19 vaccines by developed countries and their continuing refusal to waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines, causing prolong suffering in the developing world, with some countries still below global vaccine targets.

“Mistrust is widespread. Solemn promises are routinely broken. Narrow nationalism and insularity have displaced global solidarity,” he said, adding “the situation is critical”.

The Foreign Minister said also that only 12 per cent of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are on track for achievement, adding that for the first time, the Human Development Index declined globally for two years in a row, placing greater burdens on the most vulnerable. “Poverty and food insecurity are rising. Hunger is at levels not seen since 2005; a major regression. High inflation has returned.

“The global average temperatures for the last three months were the highest on record. Yet G-20 countries, who are responsible for 80 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, are failing in their duty to drastically curb their emissions. One point five alive is slipping from our grasp.”

He said the development financing gap is widening, putting development out of reach for low income and vulnerable countries.

“Our governments face a callous choice between scylla and charybdis, expensive debt payments or acquiring even more expensive debt to invest in development and resilience.

“More than half of the world’s top 50 most climate vulnerable countries are home to 40 per cent of people living in extreme poverty. But as they represent only 2.5 per cent of the global economy, their debt distress falls through the global financial cracks.

”Paradoxically, accompanying the progressive erosion of trust and solidarity is the inclination to further dig in, to deny the science, to dismiss the perspective of others, to retreat into like minded spaces and to stoke more division,” he said, adding that the spaces for dialogue and cooperation are closing and that polarisation and fragmentation are trending.

But Courtenay told the UNGA that Belize is proposing three broad actions which are urgent and necessary to restore trust and foster solidarity.

He said urgent reform of the international financial architecture is imperative.

“The objectives and policies of international financial institutions must be better aligned with our climate and development goals. The eligibility criteria, which currently exclude some vulnerable countries from access to development finance must be reformed to take account of vulnerabilities.”

The Foreign Minister said that the governance of international financial institutions must be broadened to include the voices of developing countries, saying “decisions for us cannot be made without us”.

He said the upcoming annual meetings in Marrakech, the realisation of the MDB vision emanating from the Paris Summit, the Bridgetown Initiative and the prototype multidimensional vulnerability index, are all real reforms that would reinvigorate genuine trust in the international financial system and the world must seize the day.

He said events of the last decade have shown how ineffective the UN Security Council is and the dangerous vacuum which arises therefrom.

“Threats to international peace and security demand an effective Council, one that is inclusive with equitable representation that reflects today’s global dynamics. The inability of the Council to act in the face of the illegal Russian War against Ukraine exemplifies the Council’s impotence. Reform of the Council is urgent, and Belize calls for the commencement of text-based negotiations in this session.”

He said the second proposal from Belize calls for the developed countries to meet the commitments made to small island developing states.

“Unmet commitments, insufficient to meet growing needs, have contributed to the huge financing gap we face today, to the stalling of the climate and development agendas and to the deepening of current crises.

“By course correcting immediately, we can begin to restore the trust and solidarity and get us on track to achieving the Paris goals and the SDGs. We are all on the road to climate perdition”, he said. (CMC)