Rihanna calls on Yellen, World Bank to ‘step up for communities hit hardest by climate emergencies’

Rihanna says she wants Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to get to “work, work, work, work, work” on helping communities that have battled “climate emergencies.”

The “We Found Love” singer took to Twitter on Tuesday with a message for Yellen and World Bank President Ajay Banga.

“Will you join [Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley] and step up for communities hit hardest by climate emergencies?” said the 35-year-old performer, who was born in Barbados, in a message to her more than 108 million followers.

“We need you to make bold commitments to finance and debt reforms,” the Grammy Award winner, who was born Robyn Fenty, told Yellen and Banga, sharing a link highlighting Global Citizen’s work on the issue through the nonprofit’s Power Our Planet campaign.

Last year, Rihanna donated $15 million through her Clara Lionel Foundation to 18 climate justice organizations.

“Climate disasters, which are growing in frequency and intensity, do not impact all communities equally, with communities of color and island nations facing the brunt of climate change,” she said at the time.

Earlier this year, Mottley urged the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and others to reform funding practices to help lower-income countries fight climate change.

“You cannot have development funding as short-term money. You cannot have children — young people, rather — securing mortgages for 30 years in a way that countries can only get development funding for 10, 12 years to build schools,” Mottley said at the Global Citizen NOW conference in April.

“It is that disparity in terms of how the financial system works — not just the World Bank and the IMF — but the whole financial system’s focus on short-term gains, short-term everything, that has literally propelled the developing world to the edge of a crisis,” Mottley said.

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