By: Staff Writer
March 17, 2023
A noted Caribbean economist calls on the Caribbean to build fiscal buffers and get access to emergency concessional financing to combat sea level rise as a result of climate change challenges.
Marla Dukharan, said at the RF Economic Outlook held at the Baha Mar Resort in Nassau, Bahamas that: “According to Moody’s, the Cayman and Bahamas are among the most highly exposed impacts of rising sea levels. What are we doing to build climate adaptation and resilience in the Bahamas? Do we have fiscal buffers and access to emergency concessional financing? Have our building codes adapted to this new reality?
Over 60 percent of the Caribbean will be “submerged” if temperatures rose by three degrees.
Considering the realities of climate change, these matters need to be prioritised for a safer Caribbean future.
Ms Dukharan also said: “The Caribbean is already less than two percent of the global carbon emissions problem and as rightly highlighted, there isn’t much we can do for what’s already baked in terms of the climate crisis. But via policy, we can increase insurance penetration and protect the most vulnerable from the consequences of these natural disasters.”
The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) was established in 2007 and is supposed to be an emergency insurance facility for Caribbean and Central American countries that have suffered from weather related devastation like hurricanes, and also earthquake and excess rainfall coverage.
CCRIF also works with insurance companies and encourages governments to revise their insurance strategies. This is aimed at scaling up support to LAC countries within its portfolio.
Critics of the CCRIF in the past have been that the coverage is nowhere near enough as oftentimes their payouts are minuscule to the damage created by climate change events like the multi-billion dollar Hurricane Dorian in The Bahamas in 2019 or the devastating Haiti earthquake of 2010.
Ms Dukharan also said: “The IMF is projecting that 1/3 of the global economy will be in recession this year. We have gone from a global pandemic, to a chronic crisis to now a permanent crisis.
She added: “Perhaps one strategy is to just expect the worst. At the start of this year, the World Economic Forum Global Risks report, listed the top 10 risks for the next two years. Half of the top 10 risks we’re going to face in the next two years are related to the climate crisis and the lack of meaningful mitigation and adaptation.”