Clarke warns: Polluters must pay up

St Kitts and Nevis’ Min­is­ter of Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment, En­vi­ron­ment and Cli­mate Ac­tion and Con­stituen­cy Em­pow­er­ment, Dr Joyelle Clarke, says the Caribbean en­tered COP30 with a clear-eyed un­der­stand­ing of the up­hill strug­gle ahead. But she said they al­so come with equal de­ter­mi­na­tion to push for out­comes that re­flect the re­gion’s re­al­i­ties.

Speak­ing on the side­lines of the sum­mit, Clarke de­scribed the COP process as “one you have to be res­olute about”, a space where ex­pec­ta­tions must be tem­pered and per­sis­tence be­comes strat­e­gy.

“You know go­ing in that your in­ten­tions won’t be ful­filled in the first week,” she said, “but this year, com­ing out of the Lead­ers’ Sum­mit, there’s strong mo­men­tum, es­pe­cial­ly from de­vel­op­ing coun­tries, to­ward firmer com­mit­ments.”