Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador Sir Ronald Sanders has warned that climate change and an inequitable financial system are trapping small Caribbean states in “permanent recovery,” urging the world to “price risk honestly and finance resilience fairly.”
Speaking at a consultation of more than 200 persons, convened by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on poverty, public debt and climate change, Sanders said disasters are driving debt while insurance costs surge. “When a Category-5 storm wipes out homes, roads, and power, governments must borrow to rebuild—again and again.”
The Ambassador remarked that Ocean heating and mass coral bleaching are eroding the blue economy—“over 84% of the world’s reefs have faced bleaching-level heat stress since January 2023.” Sea level is rising roughly 3.4 mm a year in the Caribbean; without major adaptation, studies project 38–47% tourism-revenue losses by 2100. A record sargassum influx this year has further strained coastal communities, while tighter reinsurance markets are making coverage unaffordable.
“The impacts of climate change are accelerating faster than the fiscal capacity of small states to adapt,” he said, pointing to average annual disaster losses near 2% of GDP, adaptation needs around 3.4% of GDP, and small island states receiving only about 2% of tracked adaptation finance. Talent flight compounds the problem, with roughly 70% of the Caribbean’s tertiary-educated living in OECD countries.
Sanders said per-capita income “distorts reality,” graduating vulnerable states out of affordable finance taking little accounts of their exposure to shocks. He urged rapid implementation of the UN-endorsed Multidimensional Vulnerability Index to unlock affordable, long-term financing. Framing climate and debt as human-rights issues, he cited recent Inter-American and International Court findings that financing terms must protect essential services and social spending as human rights.
