The threat of dis­as­ter doesn’t just come from the skies or the oceans: it comes from the qui­et and com­pound­ing strain on na­tion­al bud­gets. At COP30, Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS)—a glob­al com­mu­ni­ty fac­ing dis­pro­por­tion­ate risks from the cli­mate cri­sis—are plead­ing with the world to ho­n­our the 1.5 de­grees Cel­sius thresh­old ini­tial­ly out­lined in the Paris Agree­ment. Most SIDS are caught in a vi­cious cy­cle where se­vere weath­er events dec­i­mate crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture, high re­liance on im­ports fur­ther strains re­sources, and mount­ing debt lim­its their abil­i­ty to in­vest in re­silience projects they des­per­ate­ly need.

Guardian Me­dia spoke with Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty Cli­mate Change Cen­tre (CC­C­CC) Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor, Dr Col­in Young, at COP30 yes­ter­day about some of the pri­or­i­ties for the re­gion. Young hopes that the Na­tion­al­ly De­ter­mined Con­tri­bu­tions (ND­Cs) re­flect the ur­gency of the sit­u­a­tion and are 1.5 de­gree-aligned (in ref­er­ence to the Paris Agree­ment).

He said, “We sim­ply can­not adapt our way out of cli­mate change. So, if we’re not cut­ting emis­sions in line with the sci­ence, the im­pacts like we saw in Ja­maica with Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa, that is on­ly go­ing to in­crease, be­cause every frac­tion of a de­gree in­crease trans­lates in­to se­vere loss­es and dam­age.”

Fi­nanc­ing from the de­vel­oped coun­tries is an­oth­er ma­jor is­sue plagu­ing SIDS, as Young claims that they are not hold­ing up their end of the bar­gain. Young con­tin­ued, “What we are ask­ing from the de­vel­oped coun­tries is not char­i­ty–it is a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. They have an oblig­a­tion to de­liv­er this fi­nance to SIDS and the most vul­ner­a­ble coun­tries glob­al­ly.”

The Unit­ed Na­tions Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change has recog­nised the unique vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties of SIDS and ac­knowl­edges that they are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect­ed by cli­mate change. As a re­sult, they should be af­ford­ed spe­cial cir­cum­stances. How­ev­er, Young in­di­cat­ed, “What is hap­pen­ing over the last few years, some of our de­vel­op­ing coun­try par­ties al­so want to be recog­nised as ‘spe­cial cir­cum­stances’. These de­vel­oped na­tions, if they are not af­ford­ed the spe­cial cir­cum­stances, then they want to block the spe­cial cir­cum­stances that SIDS are af­ford­ed.”

There­fore, pro­tect­ing the SIDS’ spe­cial cir­cum­stances is key when draft­ing cli­mate change agree­ments, poli­cies and ac­cess to fund­ing. How­ev­er, while there are bil­lions of dol­lars in fund­ing avail­able via the Green Cli­mate Fund, the Adap­ta­tion Fund and the Loss and Dam­age Fund, ac­cess­ing the funds is still very com­pli­cat­ed.

The CC­C­CC’s vi­sion is for a re­silient and sus­tain­able Caribbean, while fo­cus­ing on peo­ple’s needs and liveli­hoods.

Young lament­ed the dis­so­nance be­tween the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate and or­di­nary cit­i­zens. Many peo­ple are un­able to link the im­pacts that they may ex­pe­ri­ence to cli­mate change. There is now a need to en­sure that cli­mate change is part of the cur­ricu­lum in schools so that every­one can un­der­stand that cli­mate change im­pacts our dai­ly lives.

Young said the process does not end there. In ad­di­tion to link­ing cli­mate change to ex­pe­ri­ences, so­lu­tions must al­so be de­vel­oped and im­ple­ment­ed. Young added, “Then there is a link be­tween the the­o­ry with what they’re ex­pe­ri­enc­ing. That type of link­ing with ac­tion and the­o­ry is then en­hances the knowl­edge and at­ti­tude, and hope­ful­ly shifts the be­hav­iour of peo­ple on the ground.”

The CC­C­CC worked with Cari­com mem­ber states pri­or to COP30 to en­sure that the ne­go­tia­tors and cli­mate change min­is­ters were well pre­pared so that the re­gion­al goals may be achieved. SIDS must now be giv­en the fi­nan­cial ca­pac­i­ty and in­sti­tu­tion­al space to strength­en their economies, se­cure their coast­lines and safe­guard the im­mense ma­rine re­sources they man­age.