Barbados Prime Minister wins UN top environmental award

According to Geneva Solutions, the Earth Champions Award is given every year by the UN Environment Program to honor activists, politicians, organizations, and business actors who have had a “transformative impact on the environment.”

Mottley was warded following an impressive speech at Cop26 in Glasgow, where she told fellow leaders that “failure to provide enough critical funding to small island nations is measured in lives and livelihoods in our communities.”

Small island states like Barbados are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change as the rise in global temperatures causes sea levels to increase, threatening low-lying coastal communities.

Despite its minimal contribution to the warming of the planet, Barbados has been leading by example and has committed to ambitious climate targets, including ridding the energy and transport sector of fossil fuels, Geneva Solutions reported.

Barbados was also the first to join the UN-led regional action plan to restore ecosystems by 2030 in 2020.

Three other laureates won the UN top prize, all women leaders. Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, the first wildlife veterinarian of the Uganda Wildlife Authority, was honored in the science and innovation category for her work on primates and zoonotic diseases.

The prize also went to Kyrgyz activist Maria Kolesnikova for developing an app to track air quality in Kyrgyzstan's two largest cities. Sea Women of Melanesia, an organization that trains women in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands to monitor coral bleaching, was among the four winners.

“This year’s champions are women who not only inspire us but also remind us that we have in our hands the solutions, the knowledge, and the technology to limit climate change and avoid ecological collapse,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of UNEP.