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Caribbean's climate concerns

Posted by CaribShout on December 6, 2009 at 4:36pm

As Caribbean peoples criss-cross their countries in the hustle and bustle of work, study and leisure, they appear to worry little about the effects of climate change until it hits them hard. Such was the case of unusually intense and prolonged rainfall in 2005 in Guyana, that caused the worst devastating floods in the country's history. Fortunately for the region, this year's hurricane season was unlike those of 2004 and 2008 when violent storms wreaked havoc on the tourism and agriculture-dependent Caribbean countries, leaving millions of dollars of damage in their wake. So, is there governance in climate change? A lot depends on political will and the involvement of people at all levels, as scientists have been outlining in the first in a series of lectures in Guyana on climate change in the Caribbean. Those lectures are being held by the University of Guyana with support from the British High Commission in Georgetown. Climate speak It's events like these that are making people match 'climate speak' with the grim realities of being displaced from their homes, losing their jobs or digging deeper into their pockets to pay more for food that becomes scarce due to floods and droughts.

Small island states are concerned about rising sea levels Lecturer at the University of Guyana's School of Environmental and Earth Sciences, Dr. Paulette Bynoe, traces back early concerns to the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment and 20 years later the Rio Summit that had crafted the Agenda 21 pact. She says in both cases there was a failure to match words with action. Now Dr Bynoe hopes that the visible impacts of climate change and its buzz-words will be an opportunity to reverse the problem. "For me climate change provides another opportunity for us to get it right; for us to first of all realise that we cannot continue business as usual, causing disequilibrium in natural ecological systems with impunity. "And unless we are ready to change our ways, then we're in for a lot of trouble," Dr Bynoe told the gathering at one of the lectures. Caribbean delegates will have an opportunity to put forward their concerns at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen next week. Small countries vulnerable to both economic and climatic conditions expect that developed and emerging economies will will agree to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. Political will Also at stake is a commitment by developed nations to contribute $10 billion annually by 2012, to help developing countries adapt to and reduce the impact of climate change.

Gordon Brown British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicholas Sarkozy proposed the fund. The fund was proposed by the leaders of Britain and France at the Commonwealth summit in Trinidad last week. But that's a commitment Britain's Plenipotentiary Representative to Caricom, Fraser Wheeler, says requires political will. "There are no engineering or economic reasons why we cannot define the future. "We have the technology we need, we have the capital we need, the question is whether we can summon the collective political will. This is what will be at stake at Copenhagen," Mr Wheeler said. And within the Caribbean Community (Caricom), member countries also need the political will that cuts across party lines and survives the five-year cycle of general elections. That point is made by Dr Neville Trotz, Science Adviser at the Belize-based Caricom Climate Change Centre. "Climate change must be an issue of national concern," he said . "And national approaches to deal with its consequences are therefore a sine qua non for the success of national efforts to address them." Dr Trotz also wants civil society and other organisations to be educated and informed enough to participate in climate change decision-making and policy formulation. For its part, the University of Guyana is adjusting its social and natural science studies to include climate change. "We will ensure that the outcome will see a greater focus on the economic and sociological platforms that can guide professional thought and action on the part of their graduates in areas pertinent to climate change," said Vice Chancellor Professor Lawrence Carrington. In the end it remains to be seen whether all the 'climate speak' will move from buzz words to real action, long after the Copenhagen Summit.
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Tags: caribbean, caribshout, climate, copenhagen

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