Ger­ard Best

Will Caribbean lead­ers work to­geth­er to re­spond to the glob­al chal­lenge of cli­mate change?That's the ques­tion that aris­es as the Unit­ed Na­tions' In­ter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (IPCC) con­tin­ues to re­lease its lat­est glob­al re­port on cli­mate change, which is sched­uled for com­ple­tion in Oc­to­ber.

The IPCC's pe­ri­od­ic re­ports are in­tend­ed to pro­vide the world with a clear sci­en­tif­ic view on the po­ten­tial en­vi­ron­men­tal, so­cial and eco­nom­ic im­pacts of cli­mate change. The cur­rent re­port, its fifth, is known as AR5, and it out­lines sev­er­al se­vere di­rect im­pacts of cli­mate change on hu­man life and the eco­log­i­cal well-be­ing of the en­tire plan­et.

Among the ma­jor pre­dic­tions in the first vol­ume of the re­port, re­leased in Sep­tem­ber 2013, are:

�2 Fur­ther warm­ing will con­tin­ue if emis­sions of green­house gas­es con­tin­ue

�2 The glob­al sur­face-tem­per­a­ture in­crease by the end of the 21st cen­tu­ry is like­ly to ex­ceed 1.5 de­grees C, and is like­ly to ex­ceed two de­grees C for many sce­nar­ios

�2 In­creas­es in dis­par­i­ty will ap­pear be­tween wet and dry re­gions, as well as wet and dry sea­sons

�2 The oceans will con­tin­ue to warm, with heat ex­tend­ing to the deep ocean, af­fect­ing cir­cu­la­tion pat­terns

�2 Glob­al mean sea lev­el will con­tin­ue to rise at a rate very like­ly to ex­ceed the rate of the past four decades

�2 Changes in cli­mate will cause an in­creased CO2 pro­duc­tion rate, lead­ing to in­creased ocean acid­i­fi­ca­tion

�2 Fu­ture sur­face tem­per­a­tures will be large­ly de­ter­mined by cu­mu­la­tive CO2, which means cli­mate change will con­tin­ue even if CO2 emis­sions are stopped

"While these di­rect im­pacts are grim, par­tic­u­lar­ly for a re­gion of small is­land de­vel­op­ing states, it is the in­di­rect im­pacts of cli­mate change that are of even greater con­cern," said Nor­man Gib­son, sci­en­tif­ic of­fi­cer, Caribbean Agri­cul­tur­al Re­search and De­vel­op­ment In­sti­tute (Car­di). "For ex­am­ple, cli­mate change can lead, in­di­rect­ly, to in­creased pover­ty, de­creased well­ness, high­er in­se­cu­ri­ty, greater mi­gra­tion and hu­man con­flict."The Bar­ba­dos-born Gib­son, who works at the Car­di head­quar­ters,at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies' St Au­gus­tine cam­pus, ex­plained why the Caribbean re­gion is par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble to the so­cial and eco­nom­ic fall­out of cli­mate change.

"Most of the economies in this re­gion de­pend heav­i­ly up­on tourism and agri­cul­ture, de­spite the fact that the ser­vices sec­tor is re­spon­si­ble for much of the GDP out­put. Tourism and agri­cul­ture con­tribute im­mense­ly to em­ploy­ment and so­cial sta­bil­i­ty. These sec­tors re­ly up­on nat­ur­al re­sources and are par­tic­u­lar­ly sus­cep­ti­ble to cli­mate vari­abil­i­ty and change," he said.

AR5 sug­gests that the Caribbean re­gion's vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty is like­ly to in­crease in the near-term, with sig­nif­i­cant neg­a­tive ef­fects on tourism and agri­cul­ture if ap­pro­pri­ate mit­i­ga­tion and adap­ta­tion mea­sures are not quick­ly adopt­ed. Of course, the re­gion is not alone in this re­gard. As World Bank group vice pres­i­dent and spe­cial en­voy for cli­mate change Rachel Kyte point­ed out: "The lat­est IPCC re­port paints a pic­ture of a com­pli­cat­ed fu­ture where no one gets by un­scathed, where ex­ist­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties are ex­ac­er­bat­ed and where we need to pre­pare for the worst."

These are some of the ma­jor ef­fects out­lined in IPCC AR5 Vol­ume 2, re­leased in March.

�2 If the rise in glob­al tem­per­a­ture rise ex­ceeds four de­grees C, there will be ma­jor neg­a­tive im­pacts on agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion world­wide, and ex­tinc­tion of a sub­stan­tial pro­por­tion of the earth's species.

�2 Ocean acid­i­fi­ca­tion is very like­ly to lead to re­duced coral cal­ci­fi­ca­tion, which is pro­ject­ed to have a neg­a­tive im­pact on tourism and fish­ing in­dus­tries.

�2 High am­bi­ent CO2 con­cen­tra­tions in the at­mos­phere will af­fect hu­man health by de­creas­ing the nu­tri­tion­al qual­i­ty of im­por­tant food crops

�2 The in­creas­ing prices of food com­modi­ties on the glob­al mar­ket due to lo­cal cli­mate im­pacts are like­ly to de­crease food se­cu­ri­ty.

�2 Cli­mate change will bear sig­nif­i­cant con­se­quences for hu­man mi­gra­tion flows, cre­at­ing a com­bi­na­tion of risks and ben­e­fits for mi­grants and na­tions.

"De­ci­sion-mak­ers in our re­gion must now work to­geth­er to for­mu­late a mul­ti-stake­hold­er ap­proach to the myr­i­ad is­sues raised by cli­mate change," Gib­son said. "The bur­den of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty can­not rest sole­ly on gov­ern­ments, but all sec­tors of so­ci­ety should re­spond to the call–acad­e­mia, pub­lic- and pri­vate-sec­tor en­ti­ties, civ­il so­ci­ety, and reg­u­lar cit­i­zens. Every­one is af­fect­ed, and all should play a role in shap­ing our re­sponse."

While Caribbean coun­tries need to work in­tra-re­gion­al­ly to de­vel­op a co­her­ent Caribbean per­spec­tive, there is equal­ly a re­quire­ment for the re­gion as a whole to work in con­cert with ma­jor de­ci­sions be­ing made on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage. Each re­gion's re­sponse can have a neg­a­tive side ef­fect on an­oth­er, Gib­son ex­plained. For ex­am­ple, the mass mi­gra­tion of li­on­fish to Caribbean wa­ters high­lights how in­va­sive ma­rine species can be detri­men­tal to for­eign ecosys­tems. Al­so, the de­ci­sion to de­vel­op bio­fu­els as en­er­gy sources in one part of the world can in­crease food prices and af­fect land use prac­tices else­where."The Caribbean must take part more ac­tive­ly in pol­i­cy for­ma­tion process­es at the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el be­cause de­ci­sions are be­ing made there which can have se­ri­ous im­pli­ca­tions for our qual­i­ty of life here," Gib­son said.

The Re­gion­al Frame­work for Achiev­ing De­vel­op­ment Re­silient to Cli­mate Change, ap­proved by the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty in 2009, pro­vides a road map for Caribbean ac­tion on cli­mate change over the pe­ri­od 2011 to 2021. The frame­work un­der­scores the im­por­tance of a com­mon re­gion­al ap­proach to ad­dress the threats and chal­lenges of cli­mate change.An im­ple­men­ta­tion plan, which was sub­se­quent­ly de­vel­oped to guide the de­liv­ery of the re­gion­al frame­work, calls for a change in mind­set, in­sti­tu­tion­al arrange­ments, op­er­at­ing sys­tems, col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach­es, and in­te­grat­ed plan­ning mech­a­nisms in or­der to de­liv­er the strate­gic el­e­ments and goals of the re­gion­al frame­work.But AR5 puts square­ly in­to per­spec­tive the need for ur­gent and con­cert­ed ac­tion.

"Caribbean lead­ers have ar­rived at a cross­roads," Gib­son said, "and it is time that the rhetoric is matched by in­vest­ment in ac­tu­al do­ing. Ur­gent and sus­tained mea­sures must be tak­en now to tack­le the cru­cial is­sues raised by AR5. It is clear that a re­gion­al di­a­logue with all stake­hold­ers is re­quired, and Caribbean lead­ers must seize this mo­ment and make sure that this grow­ing chal­lenge is met with an ap­pro­pri­ate re­sponse."

Ger­ard Best is the New Me­dia Ed­i­tor for Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed. You can fol­low his tweets here.