By: Dr Carla Barnett
November 15, 2024
I thank the hosts for organising this important forum, which is so relevant and timely in the current global context.
Member States of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) continue to be greatly concerned about the impacts of climate change and climate variability on regional mobility and population movement. Migration as a result of climate events is a first-hand experience of many Caribbean citizens, particularly following major hurricanes.
Small Island Developing States (SIDS), like those in the Caribbean, are hard pressed to provide adequate facilities for the temporary evacuation of persons following disasters when many persons are displaced, sometimes for extended periods. In 2019, over 70,000 people were displaced and thousands left homeless after Hurricane Dorian struck The Bahamas. We faced similar challenges in Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines following the passage of Hurricane Beryl in July this year.
Children face disrupted education as schools are destroyed or used as hurricane shelters which become temporary housing after storms. After disasters, persons move within the region, across states, and, for example, we have schools in unaffected states accepting displaced students.
The challenges facing the Caribbean Region due to the climate crisis are complex. However, we must be clear about where solutions would best be directed. Policy solutions, to plan for climate mobility would be most effective in the context of broader success in addressing climate change. Success would mean effective action to keep 1.5 degrees alive; delivering and improving on the 100 billion dollars a year for developing countries to adapt to and mitigate the impact of climate change; and ensuring that action is within the context of an equitable and just green transition.
It is very difficult to craft solutions as the existential threats of sea level rise and increasingly extreme storms are seemingly being normalized. This is how it feels. The record-breaking Hurricane Beryl of July 1 this year passed through the news cycle with rapidity even as the affected countries, communities and people continue at this time to seek their new normal.
Population movement because of Climate Change will continue to grow.
Facilitated movement has always been an important feature within CARICOM. This, in the context of a Caribbean population that has been moving for many generations, whether within the region or to outside the region.
As human displacement continues to increase with climate change, forced mobility will challenge us.
As the CARICOM Region develops policies and plans on mobility and migration, there is a need for critical support for data collection and analysis to better understand the cope and implications of climate mobility within our Region. It is relatively easy to connect climate change as a key driver of displacement following a disaster and act to support each other. But decisions to move housing away from the coast to inland areas or to relocate agricultural production because of land degradation or salt water intrusion are much more complex. The social, economic, scientific, cultural and other factors have to be considered.
In the tourism sector, climate change affects voluntary recreational movers – tourists – with serious implications for a sector that is critical to the economies of the Caribbean.
Hotels have been asking for timely and specific information on heat spells, wet days and for early warning of storms. Additionally, eroding coastlines are losing the beaches that attract visitors to the region.
Strengthened partnerships will be crucial, as as we seek to craft solutions to these issues.
How do we help people to stay in their communities by building resilience in the face of climate change? How do we provide adequate protection and humanitarian assistance for people on the move? How do we help people to move out of harm’s way through well-managed mobility.
We seek to do what is needed while maintaining respect for human rights and dignity. We are seeking to ensure that communities and families are supported, in the context of resilience building frameworks, to better allow for their own adaptation to the current and future impacts of climate change.
Much more needs to be done.
Given the realities of limited fiscal space, cooperation and partnerships are critical between CARICOM states and international and bilateral development agencies. Given the realities of limited fiscal space and existing high debt burdens, much of which has resulted from disaster response and recovery, access to finance – both low cost and grant financing – is critical.
This is a pivotal moment, as we seek to navigate these complexities towards a future for our people, where the impact of climate change – a climate change that we have not caused and do not cause – is already undermining our social and economic gains.
Thank you.
(The author is the Secretary General of the CARICOM)
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