JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, July 20, 2025

Wanted in the Caribbean: Regional response to global climate change

by

20140622

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.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored