World leaders meeting in Paris on Thursday could give poorer countries access to hundreds of billions of dollars to tackle climate change.
Mia Mottley, Barbados’ first female prime minister, is leading the global battle for that money and told BBC News her tiny country urgently needs help.
Poorer nations want more money because they have done little to cause climate change but face its worst effects.
They also struggle to afford expensive projects like renewable energy.
Climate finance, including funding for flood defenses or solar power plants, has long been one of the biggest stumbling blocks in climate negotiations.
But Ms. Motley has built a global coalition to support her demand that the international financial system be fundamentally reformed.
“We’re all in this together,” Ms Motley told BBC News in Paris. “If we don’t realize this, we won’t act with the urgency needed to save the planet and lives.”
The Prime Minister of Barbados is co-hosting the conference in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Dozens of world leaders are attending the summit on a new global financial pact, including the German chancellor, the president of Brazil and the new president of the World Bank, as well as China’s premier and the US treasury secretary.
The United Kingdom is sending its development minister, Andrew Mitchell.
Ms. Motley is determined that the meeting will produce results.
She described the threat of climate change as a “death sentence” for the world. “If this is a death sentence, then we need to act urgently,” she explains.
Insiders at the summit are expecting an announcement that the goal of $100 billion in a type of international currency called special drawing rights (SDRs) has been met.
These assets will be transferred to low-income countries to be used for climate programs.
But Ms. Motley has an even bigger prize in her sights, a plan called the Bridgetown Program after Barbados’ capital.
He wants to generate more finance for the countries that need it most through a comprehensive modernization of the international monetary system.
The current institutions – including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – were created by the victorious nations towards the end of World War II at a conference at a ski resort called Bretton Woods in New Hampshire, USA
The so-called “Bretton Woods system” will celebrate its 80th anniversary next year.
Ms Motley says she wants to make it relevant to the challenges of the modern world by shifting the focus from wealthier nations to achieving results that benefit the whole world, such as helping developing countries deal with climate change.
“The reason these institutions exist is that they were created to help the world in its recovery efforts after World War II. We’re at a point that’s the equivalent of World War II in terms of climate,” she said.
This week, the International Energy Agency warned that annual investment in clean energy in developing countries will need to triple from $770 billion in 2022 to $2.8 trillion by the early 2030s if the world is to avoid the most the adverse effects of climate change.
One proposal is for institutions like the World Bank to offer cheaper loans for climate action projects.
It is much more expensive to build flood defenses in Barbados or Angola than in the Netherlands or the UK, Ms Motley points out.
The same goes for building wind turbines or installing solar farms.
This is because low-income countries are charged high interest rates – often two or even three times the rates faced by developed nations.
Yet the risks of individual projects do not differ that much.
Another proposal is for institutions such as the World Bank to agree to guarantee loans for climate action in developing countries. This would encourage the private sector to lend at lower interest rates.
Experts say these initiatives could generate hundreds of billions of dollars worth of loans for climate projects in low-income countries.
Another proposal includes the creation of an auction in which developing nations would bid for low-cost financing for climate projects.
This “Climate Mitigation Trust Fund” will be funded by the SDR worth tens of billions of dollars and will be overseen by the IMF and the UN.
The winners will be the projects that reduce global warming the fastest.
No final decision is expected on these proposals, but Ms Motley is confident progress will be made.
We tell our children that we shouldn’t put off until tomorrow what we need to do today, says Ms. Motley.
“I find that I actually repeat a lot of things that we would say to children to inform global behavior today,” she continues. “That tells us a lot.”