Browne Calls for Climate Justice and Fairer Financing at Global Citizen NOW Summit in Australia

Prime Minister Gaston Browne has urged the international community to turn climate commitments into measurable action, warning that small island states are being forced into expensive borrowing to recover from disasters they did little to cause.

Speaking at the Global Citizen NOW Summit in Australia, Browne described climate change as an existential threat, a development crisis and an assault on the economic sovereignty of Small Island Developing States.

“The injustice is profound: countries that have contributed least to global greenhouse-gas emissions are among those suffering the most severe consequences,” he said.

“Worse still, our countries are often compelled to borrow at high interest rates to rebuild after disasters we did little to cause. This is a double injustice that the international community must confront.”

Addressing the theme “Climate Justice, Survival and Sovereignty: From Advocacy to Action,” Browne said rising seas, intensifying hurricanes, prolonged droughts and coastal erosion threaten homes, water supplies, food security, infrastructure and livelihoods.

He warned that the consequences also extend to cultural heritage, territorial integrity and the rights of future generations.

The Prime Minister called for accessible, predictable and affordable climate finance, arguing that vulnerable countries cannot build resilience while trapped in a recurring cycle of destruction, borrowing and reconstruction.

“We need grants, not as charity, but as compensation for climate injustice,” he said.

His proposals included greater support for adaptation and loss and damage, concessional financing, disaster-responsive debt arrangements and lending criteria that properly recognise structural vulnerability.

Browne highlighted Antigua and Barbuda’s efforts to strengthen the international response, including through the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS and its role as co-chair of the expert panel that developed the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index.

He said the index challenges the use of income alone to assess a country’s capacity to withstand shocks.

He also pointed to the country’s work alongside Tuvalu through the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law, including the 2024 advisory opinion of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. He noted Antigua and Barbuda’s support for the International Court of Justice advisory opinion initiative led by Vanuatu.

Despite those advances, Browne stressed that international advocacy must deliver practical benefits.

Energy security was another central concern. The Prime Minister said fossil fuel subsidies cost Antigua and Barbuda approximately 2.5 per cent of GDP in 2026, consuming resources that could otherwise have supported healthcare, education, agriculture, housing and economic diversification.

He called investment in solar power, wind energy, battery storage and resilient electricity grids an “absolute necessity.”

While those investments require substantial capital, he said they can reduce dependence on imported fuel, strengthen energy security and retain more economic value within small island economies.

Browne argued that long-term concessional funding is essential to lower borrowing costs and reduce the risks associated with renewable energy projects.

“Climate resilience is therefore, not merely environmental policy; it is economic transformation and an instrument of sovereignty,” he said.

As Antigua and Barbuda prepares to assume the Commonwealth Chair-in-Office following CHOGM in November 2026, Browne pledged to mobilise the organisation’s collective influence behind resilient infrastructure, affordable climate finance, clean-energy investment and accountability.

He also said the country would work with Caribbean, Pacific and other vulnerable partners at COP31 in Türkiye to demand stronger adaptation support, effective loss-and-damage arrangements, ambitious emissions reductions and fairer access to finance and technology.

“Our leadership must be measured not by the eloquence of our declarations, but by the homes we protect, the livelihoods we secure and the opportunities we create for our people,” Browne said.