NEW YORK — Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley has called on world leaders to recommit to a rules-based international system, warning that truth, trust, and fairness are being eroded by war, inequality, and the climate crisis.
“Countries of different sizes, capacities and cultures can only survive in the world in which we live if we maintain a rules-based system,” she told the UN General Assembly during its 80th session. “The law of the jungle does not guarantee any of us a future or a liveable planet.”
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Mottley cautioned that the “crisis of truth” is undermining institutions that once promoted order and prosperity, eroding trust between citizens and governments, and reducing news, science, and law to “a tawdry spectacle.” She warned: “When we lose shared truth, our countries and our global society lose their center of gravity.”
Turning to global conflicts, Mottley reiterated support for peace in Ukraine but pressed governments not to neglect crises elsewhere. “The world must not ignore the horror in Sudan and…it must not ignore the horror in Gaza,” she said. She demanded the release of hostages while condemning disproportionate attacks on Palestinian civilians. The Prime Minister urged swift action on humanitarian funding, highlighting an urgent need for $66 million for Gaza’s children and $200 million for Sudan over the next three months, largely for food, water, and health needs.
On climate change, Mottley urged leaders to act “with honesty and urgency,” welcoming recent international court opinions affirming states’ obligations to curb emissions. She proposed a binding global framework on methane as a critical step to slowing temperature rise. “The fossil fuel industry is not the enemy – it is the emissions,” she said, calling for the political will to unlock $1.3 trillion annually by 2035 to finance the green transition. She criticized the chronic underfunding of climate finance and described the Loss and Damage Fund as “grossly under-capitalised.” Debates on climate and development, she warned, risk becoming “performative exercises” unless backed by resources and a governance system rooted in fairness. “If we are to be protected by a rules-based system, then we must step up to the plate and provide the funds to bridge the gap to deliver the results that we desire,” she declared.
Mottley also addressed global governance, insisting that the UN Security Council must be reformed to reflect today’s multipolar world. “You cannot ask us really to show up for family photos and votes when you need them and then exclude us from the family’s decision making, as if you are the grown-ups and we are the children,” she said.
She ended her speech with a powerful image of a young Palestinian girl seen walking through rubble in Gaza, carrying her sister despite her own visible pain. “It was clear she was in great pain, yet she recognised it was she who would have to carry the burden of taking them to safety,” Mottley said. Calling the child “the ultimate picture of hope and resilience,” she urged leaders to summon the same will to create a more just and sustainable world.
“If a six-year-old can push past the physical and emotional pain and still find hope that there is a better moment ahead of her, then we, with much more and with an obligation to many more, must summon that same will. The world needs it now more than ever.”
