The dev­as­tat­ing ef­fects of cli­mate change con­tin­ue to neg­a­tive­ly im­pact Caribbean economies which are con­stant­ly forced to seek “new mon­ey” to mit­i­gate against such dis­as­ters.

In fact, nev­er be­fore has there been such an ur­gent need to sup­port coun­tries in the re­gion “fac­ing the worst” of the cli­mate cri­sis.

This was among the is­sues brought to the fore dur­ing a ses­sion ti­tled, “Cli­mate-proof­ing the Caribbean: A part­ner­ship for the fu­ture” which fo­cused on how Caribbean coun­tries can work with al­lies to build sus­tain­able and re­silient economies.

Robert Le Hunte, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, Ba­hamas, Bar­ba­dos, Guyana, Ja­maica, and T&T at the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank who was among the pan­el said the re­gion has been deal­ing with cli­mate is­sues for a long time, cit­ing that from 1950 to the present al­most 511 dis­as­ters have hit the world, the ma­jor­i­ty of which-over 65 per cent-have af­fect­ed re­gions like the Caribbean.

This, Le Hunte ex­plained, means that gov­ern­ments have suc­ces­sive­ly been fun­nelling mon­ey to deal with cli­mate is­sues for quite a while which in turn, re­duces fi­nan­cial ef­forts for oth­er sec­tors.

“That has re­tard­ed our abil­i­ty to use fund­ing that is re­quired in ed­u­ca­tion and so­cial pro­grammes and so forth. That has been the re­al­i­ty of the gov­ern­ments of the re­gion...this is­sue, it is es­ti­mat­ed has been cost­ing us ap­prox­i­mate­ly one per cent of our GDP an­nu­al­ly,” he fur­ther ex­plained.

Ac­cord­ing to Le Hunte fund­ing, there­fore, is not on­ly re­quired for deal­ing with cli­mate is­sues but al­so for de­vel­op­men­tal work need­ed in the re­gion.

“At the end of the day there’s very lit­tle you could do with­out mon­ey and mon­ey is need­ed to help tran­si­tion from a con­ver­sa­tion to im­ple­men­ta­tion,” the for­mer Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties and for­mer man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of ANSA Bank em­pha­sised.

He al­so cit­ed an ILO re­port which stat­ed that the change in tem­per­a­ture will al­so af­fect pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in the re­gion which will have a loss of about 2.5 mil­lion jobs, many of which in­clude “low lev­el” em­ploy­ment like street vend­ing.

“The im­pact on cli­mate is­sues spreads across from tourism to agri­cul­ture to health care to ed­u­ca­tion be­cause it al­so siphons mon­ey away from help­ing those par­tic­u­lar ar­eas de­vel­op,” Le Hunte added.

Hav­ing in­sti­tu­tions like the IDB, he said and oth­er de­vel­op­ment banks be­ing part of such con­ver­sa­tions al­low for first-hand tes­ti­monies from var­i­ous lead­ers about their as­pi­ra­tions and can en­able nec­es­sary fi­nanc­ing.

The US is al­so do­ing its part to help vul­ner­a­ble coun­tries.

US Spe­cial Pres­i­den­tial En­voy for Cli­mate John Ker­ry re­cent­ly re­turned from The Ba­hamas af­ter meet­ing with Caribbean lead­ers.

Caribbean ef­forts to pro­tect the re­gion face se­vere fi­nan­cial and in­fra­struc­ture chal­lenges and the US stands ready to help, know­ing that work­ing to­geth­er is the best path for­ward.

The Part­ner­ship to Ad­dress the Cli­mate Cri­sis 2030 (PACC 2030) an­nounced by US Vice-Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris is one ex­am­ple, and the At­lantic Coun­cil has launched a new work­ing group ded­i­cat­ed to build­ing a roadmap that sup­ports PACC 2030’s im­ple­men­ta­tion.

The At­lantic Coun­cil is a non­par­ti­san or­gan­i­sa­tion that gal­vanis­es US glob­al lead­er­ship and en­gage­ment in part­ner­ship with al­lies and part­ners.

On the poli­cies from the US Gov­ern­ment to as­sist with cli­mate change Bar­bara Fe­in­stein, Deputy As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary for Caribbean Af­fairs and Haiti US De­part­ment of State who was al­so part of the talks said there are sev­er­al com­mit­ments in­clud­ing ex­pand­ing blend­ed fi­nanc­ing for Caribbean na­tions.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, she said an ex­pan­sion for IBD In­vest is al­so be­ing ad­vo­cat­ed.

IDB In­vest aims to be the part­ner of choice for the pri­vate sec­tor in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean to fi­nance projects to ad­vance clean en­er­gy, mod­ernise agri­cul­ture, strength­en trans­porta­tion sys­tems and ex­pand ac­cess to fi­nanc­ing.

The ef­fects of the cli­mate cri­sis run deep, im­pact­ing com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions as well.

Muham­mad Ab­dul­lah, Co­ca-Co­la’s vice-pres­i­dent for the Caribbean re­gion not­ed that the im­pact on busi­ness com­ing out of cli­mate change is un­de­ni­able.

“We have had cas­es in the Caribbean where the in­ter­rup­tion to busi­ness is sig­nif­i­cant as a re­sult of some of the events we are see­ing and we are wit­ness­ing in many of our coun­tries,” he said.

Ex­press­ing con­cern about how these risks trans­late to the busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment Ab­dul­lah said this ranges from the im­pact on em­ploy­ees to the cus­tomers to the fi­nal con­sumer who are all in­ter­rupt­ed in some way or the oth­er.

“I specif­i­cal­ly re­mem­ber Prime Min­is­ter Mot­t­ley men­tion­ing about the im­pact of each event. Call it a hur­ri­cane for ex­am­ple, go­ing up to as much as five per cent on the im­pact on the GDP of some of our coun­tries.

“That def­i­nite­ly has a tan­gi­ble im­pli­ca­tion on busi­ness and for us sus­tain­abil­i­ty is equal to busi­ness and busi­ness is equal to sus­tain­abil­i­ty. We are def­i­nite­ly con­cerned and fo­cused on that,” Ab­dul­lah ex­plained.

He, how­ev­er, said the com­pa­ny wants to be part of the so­lu­tion in­clud­ing by pro­vid­ing sus­tain­able of­fer­ings like re­cy­clable pack­ag­ing.

On a large scale, Ab­dul­lah rec­om­mend­ed the com­plex­i­ties of the re­gion call for “well-stud­ied” ob­jec­tives to not on­ly guar­an­tee the sus­tain­abil­i­ty side of things but al­so en­sure the busi­ness side of things keeps run­ning.

Re­gard­ing Co­ca-Co­la’s ef­forts in this re­gard Ab­dul­lah said, “We have been work­ing in­di­vid­u­al­ly and with part­ners across the re­gion. We are work­ing with the ocean clean-up in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and in Ja­maica. We have re­cy­cled resin in many of our mar­kets. We have re­turn­able pack­ages as well which we be­lieve help.”

How­ev­er, he main­tained the im­pact on busi­ness is di­rect­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with how well the chal­lenge of sus­tain­abil­i­ty is em­braced in the re­gion.

Dur­ing the dis­cus­sions, the Bridgetown Ini­tia­tive was high­light­ed as a po­ten­tial so­lu­tion.

The Bridgetown Ini­tia­tive was de­vised by a group led by Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley and her cli­mate fi­nance en­voy Avinash Per­saud.

The idea was first un­veiled by Mot­t­ley at COP26 Glas­glow and fur­ther de­vel­oped with the help of in­ter­na­tion­al aca­d­e­mics and civ­il so­ci­ety dur­ing a gath­er­ing in Ju­ly 2022 at Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos.

So far, the ini­tia­tive has earned pub­lic praise from fig­ures such as French Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron and IMF man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Kristali­na Georgie­va.

The Bridgetown Ini­tia­tive al­so aims to over­come some of the main short­com­ings of mo­bil­is­ing cli­mate fi­nance for small is­land de­vel­op­ing states (SIDS) like Bar­ba­dos.

It in­cludes five pro­pos­als to ad­dress im­me­di­ate liq­uid­i­ty chal­lenges in SIDS and to build a new in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial sys­tem that re­sponds bet­ter to the cli­mate and de­vel­op­ment crises for front­line economies in­clud­ing:

• draw­ing in $5 tril­lion of pri­vate sav­ings for cli­mate mit­i­ga­tion;

• widen­ing ac­cess to con­ces­sion­al fi­nance for the cli­mate-vul­ner­a­ble;

• ex­pand­ing MDB (mul­ti­lat­er­al de­vel­op­ment bank) lend­ing for cli­mate and SDGs by $1 tril­lion;

• fund­ing loss and dam­age

• mak­ing the fi­nan­cial sys­tem more shock ab­sorbent by nor­mal­is­ing nat­ur­al dis­as­ter and pan­dem­ic claus­es in all lend­ing in­stru­ments.

Once dis­as­ters hit, these claus­es lead to an im­me­di­ate and un­con­di­tion­al sus­pen­sion of debt ser­vice and an ex­ten­sion of the loan ma­tu­ri­ty by two years.