UN General Assembly
2022

We have spoken here before of the cataclysmic impact of successive disasters on our country. Tropical Storm Erika, in 2015, and Hurricane Maria, in 2017, caused more than 90 per cent and 226 per cent loss of gross domestic product (GDP), respectively, in terms of lives lost, people displaced and livelihoods shattered. Those experiences triggered our goal of becoming the first climate-resilient nation in the world and realigned our focus to concentrate on adaptation efforts and building back better in every sector of the economy. Our small island developing States are disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change — a phenomenon that will continue to escalate with every increment of global warming. As sea levels rise, some small island States will eventually disappear, while others will experience