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 PM, is leading the global fight for this money and tells BBC News that her tiny country urgently needs help.
Poorer nations want more money because they did 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 defences or solar plants, has long been one of the biggest sticking points in climate negotiations.
But Ms Mottley has built a global coalition to support her demand that the international financial system be fundamentally reformed.
“We are all in this together”, Ms Mottley told BBC News in Paris. “If we don’t realise that, we will not act with the urgency that’s necessary to save the planet and save lives.”
The Barbadian prime minister is joint host of the Paris conference with President Emmanuel Macron of France.
Dozens of world leaders are attending the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, including the German Chancellor, the president of Brazil and the new president of the World Bank as well as the prime minister of China and the US Treasury Secretary.
The UK is sending its minister for development, Andrew Mitchell.
Ms Mottley is determined the meeting deliver results.
She describes the threat of climate change as “a death sentence” on the world. “If it is a death sentence, then we need to move with urgency,” she explains.
Insiders at the summit are expecting an announcement that a target for $100bn worth of a kind of international currency called Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) has been met.
