Prime Minister Philip Davis, while speaking at the COP28 conference, emphasized the urgent need for financing to support this nation’s recovery and adaptation efforts.
He touted The Bahamas Sustainable Investment Programme as a creative climate finance solution. While speaking at the launch of the Bahamas Sustainable Investment Programme at COP 28, Prime Minister Davis noted that four massive hurricanes have impacted the country in under ten years, which has cost the nation billions and left very little fiscal space to get ready for the next storms.
Davis said: “Over a third of our national debt results from the impact of hurricanes. As well as the direct expenditure, think of the opportunity cost involved. This is money that could have been used to build badly needed hospitals, schools, roads, and so on. It’s a kind of double-whammy! Topping the lists of countries most vulnerable to climate change makes borrowing more expensive. Every day, we are paying: both for the hurricanes that we’ve already suffered and the ones yet to come.”
The Prime Minister also noted that the designation of our nation as a high-income country leaves us unable to access fair and concessional financing.
“We desperately need financing to support our efforts in recovery and adaptation. So we are trapped in a cycle in which our debt-servicing obligations, force under-investment in our ability to make ourselves more resilient. We urgently need new and creative climate finance solutions. That’s why we’re so excited about The Bahamas Sustainable Investment Programme. Through this initiative, we are going to survive an era of super-charged storms, by creating super-charged, win-win investment partnerships.”
He further noted that the government and its advisors, Resilience Capital Ventures, will work with regional and global capital market leaders to underwrite and implement an innovative financing facility.
“We aim to secure a facility of $500 million US dollars. Our priorities for this fund include spending to make our infrastructure more climate-resilient, our transition to clean energy, conservation of our coastal zones, reduction in biodiversity loss, regenerative agriculture, carbon sequestration, and participation in natural asset-backed carbon credit programs. Blended finance is a smart way to close the climate financing gap at a time when solutions cannot be postponed,” Davis said.
