(Barbados Today) Prime Minister Mia Mottley has defended Barbados’ plans to resume fossil fuel exploration off its coast, saying that developing nations deserved “equity” and needed the revenue from oil and gas sales to finance the shift to clean energy.
Net zero emissions “doesn’t mean zero fossil fuels,” though “all of us agree that there has to be a significant decline in production,” said Mottley, speaking at a Financial Times climate conference on Tuesday.
Developing countries needed “a way to finance our route to net zero”, and if the wealthy nations that “caused the problems” would not provide funding, they would need to find other ways to generate revenue, such as exporting fossil fuels, she said, according to the Financial Times.
“There has to be equity,” the Barbadian leader insisted.