Matching talk with money

Among the highlights of the Caricom-Japan Summit which was recently held in Trinidad and Tobago is an initiative which entails a US$15 million grant to boost the Region’s capacity to overcome the impacts of natural disasters. This project will enable countries in the Caribbean, including Guyana, Suriname and Belize, to enhance their adaptive capacity to climate change and natural disasters.

Caribbean countries share common vulnerabilities, ranging from debt and excessive dependence on international trade to climate change and rising sea levels. For example, most of Jamaica was left without electricity, and public infrastructure suffered damage valued at hundreds of millions of dollars following the passage of Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

In Grenada, Hurricane Ivan left damage worth 203 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and St Lucia lost 365 per cent of its GDP following Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. Most of us in Guyana would also recall the massive floods in 2005 which resulted in severe damage to agricultural crops and livestock. In addition to significant damage to property, several Guyanese lost their lives.

The Caribbean needs help in fighting climate change. Most of the economies of the Region are small and national governments are occupied trying to find jobs and creating more opportunities for their citizens. They do not have the necessary resources which amount to millions of US dollars to make the kind of investments in mitigation and adaptation projects.

We therefore welcome this new Japan-Caribbean-UNDP Partnership as it will boost national policies and plans to cope with climate change-related adversity, among them, being aiming to reduce dependency on fossil fuel imports, setting the Region on a low-emission path and improving access to sustainable energy.

There has been much talk by the big players such as the European Union and the US. While they have all expressed how concerned they are, they are not matching their talk with the massive level of investments needed to help poorer countries put systems in place to adequately deal with the impacts of climate change.

Countries which are the biggest producers of carbon emissions are some of the slowest when it comes to implementing meaningful measures against climate change. The Caribbean countries are perhaps among the lowest polluters in the world, yet they are the ones who are facing (and will continue to face) the brunt of the impact of climate change.

The world has committed to finalising a legally binding climate agreement by 2015 and that is now only a few months away. Former Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo who has been a global advocate on climate change issues had said that if we are to have a chance at winning this battle, urgent and necessary action will need to be taken at the highest level of world governments and international bodies.

Jagdeo had also warned that there are practical interventions which could be taken now to minimise the effects of climate change, these include: building hurricane-proof hospitals and schools; making agriculture and other economic activities more resilient to climate events; and creating new financial mechanisms that make clean energy more attractive.

These are practical solutions that can be delivered today. Jagdeo had argued: “Not only do they make moral and economic sense, but they are indispensable to building trust within the international community that the world is serious about addressing climate change.”

Climate change and rising sea levels no doubt pose severe threats to countries such as Guyana considering we are below sea level and much our people live on the coastland and depend on agriculture for a living. The big question is how do we move forward.

There is general agreement that industrialised countries have a moral obligation to do more in terms of helping poorer countries avert the catastrophic effects of the climate change phenomenon. Japan and Norway are among the countries that have matched their talk with money, others should follow suit.