--- title: How to Make Rich Countries Pay For Their Climate Impact description: Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley has a proposal for how to fix the climate gap between the Global North and South. canonical: https://time.com/6225264/climate-reparations-rich-countries-barbados/ author: Mia Mottley article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-10-27T11:00:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-14T09:41:10.029Z article:section: Ideas og:title: How to Make Rich Countries Pay For Their Climate Impact og:description: Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley has a proposal for how to fix the climate gap between the Global North and South. og:url: https://time.com/6225264/climate-reparations-rich-countries-barbados/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5004c39746d90b16/698a36c486f68e2de06f1c2c/bahamas-hurricane-destruction-cop27-e1666803993186.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1600 og:image:height: 900 og:image:alt: Damage from Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How to Make Rich Countries Pay For Their Climate Impact twitter:description: Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley has a proposal for how to fix the climate gap between the Global North and South. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5004c39746d90b16/698a36c486f68e2de06f1c2c/bahamas-hurricane-destruction-cop27-e1666803993186.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here's How to Actually Make Rich Countries Pay For Their Climate Impact > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=b190166f-6ecd-49e4-9320-07aef51ae52f&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: U.N. Says Greenhouse Gases Reached New Record in 2021 [Watch (HLS stream): U.N. Says Greenhouse Gases Reached New Record in 2021](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/xzz5aKgl.m3u8) (3:16)  _Published 2022-10-27. Climate change has no regard for state borders. Nor does a nation’s wealth or power immunize it from the annual rise in temperatures exacerbating extreme flooding, droughts, and storms. This reality is bringing together nearly 200 nations for COP27, to be held in Egypt—a nation highly vulnerable to climate change but antagonistic toward an essential stakeholder in the climate conversation: independent civil society. Indeed, the Egyptian government has given summit access only to local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that support the regime._ by [Mia Mottley](https://time.com/author/mia-mottley/) ## Mia Mottley Oct 27, 2022 11:00 AM UTC Climate change has no regard for state borders. Nor does a nation’s wealth or power immunize it from the annual rise in temperatures exacerbating extreme flooding, droughts, and storms. This reality is bringing together nearly 200 nations for COP27, to be held in Egypt—a nation highly vulnerable to climate change but antagonistic toward an essential stakeholder in the climate conversation: independent civil society. Indeed, the Egyptian government has given summit access only to local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that support the regime. by [Mia Mottley](https://time.com/author/mia-mottley/) ## Mia Mottley Oct 27, 2022 11:00 AM UTC Today, the front line of the climate crisis lies between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, where 40% of the world lives. This belt around the equator is where temperatures will reach the most intolerable, and sea levels will rise the most. It’s also home to those who have contributed the least to the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. On a per capita basis, the U.S. [contribution to this historical stock](https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-which-countries-are-historically-responsible-for-climate-change/) is more than 18 times that of India, for example. And while wealthy nations like the U.S. ask today’s big developing-country emitters like India to reduce emissions now, those developing countries rightfully [demand that their rich neighbors do more](https://time.com/6197027/pacific-island-nations-vanuatu-climate-change/), given the wealth they’ve gained from years of burning fossil fuels unchecked. The result is a finger-pointing contest that leaves the world neither doing enough now to deal with the realities of climate change, nor planning to do so in the future. The [Bridgetown Initiative](https://gisbarbados.gov.bb/download/the-2022-barbados-agenda/), developed with the help of international academics and civil society, gathered in Bridgetown, Barbados, in July of this year to seek reconciliation by recasting the problem and solution around global needs and opportunities, not nations. One critical initiative is on climate loss and damage. Those on the front line cannot insure themselves against the climate crisis. They face large and certain losses—increasing in size and frequency—that are clearly correlated to the actions of others. Commercial insurance requires risks to be quite different: uncorrelated, uncertain, and unrising. If those on the front line were to insure themselves it would, essentially, be “victim pays”—in installments over the coming years. Bridgetown calls for a new global mechanism where there is an automatic release of international cash and material support for reconstruction wherever an independently verified, significant climate disaster occurs, or when slow-onset disaster happens. This support cannot come in the form of new debt, as climate-vulnerable countries already struggle with high debt because of previous climate costs. **_Read more:_** [**The World Can’t Afford World Bank Inaction on Climate Change**](https://time.com/6223564/the-world-cant-afford-world-bank-inaction-on-climate-change/) We also need this grant mechanism to be funded in a way that does not draw too heavily on current budgets and does not exacerbate today’s cost-of-living crisis. One opportunity lies in the fact that while the Russian invasion of Ukraine has elevated [fossil-fuel prices](https://time.com/6160256/gas-prices-climate-cost/) by 30% to 40% over pre-COVID levels, it is unlikely that these levels will be sustained, whatever the short-term manipulations of supply. This is especially true if we continue to transition out of fossil fuels and reduce the energy intensification of GDP. Nations could put a levy on the production of fossil fuels that could start at zero and rise by 1 percentage point for every 10-percentage-point decline in fossil-fuel prices from today’s levels. The revenues would go to a fund, modeled on the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds, that could be accessed immediately by any country experiencing an independently verified climate event that has cost more than, say, 5% of GDP. The annual conference on the climate crisis, COP27, must address loss and damage. Otherwise, the climate crisis will quickly become a debt crisis as climate­-vulnerable countries add more debt to pay for increasingly severe climate disasters. In some Caribbean countries, over 50% of the increase in debt in recent decades comes from costs related to natural disasters. Increasing debt means less to spend on public health, welfare, and education, so this would quickly become a development crisis, with international spillovers on conflict, [migration](https://time.com/4024210/climate-change-migrants/), and even pandemics. 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