By: Dr Carla Barnett
October 1, 2024
The Caribbean Community last year celebrated 50 years of our integration grouping. Our founding Heads of Government were acutely aware of the immense challenges that newly independent post colonial small states would have in their development journey and even at that time, provided for collaboration to protect the natural resources and the environment. Fifty years later, climate change is one of the biggest threats to our development.
In the Caribbean, we, like other SIDS, are on the frontlines of the fight against climate change, bearing the brunt of impacts that are not of our making.
CARICOM has worked collectively with SIDS around the world since the late 1980s to signal the alarm of sea-level rise as a slow, silent and deadly consequence of climate change and we are already facing losses and damage due to sea-level rise.
Coastal ecosystems, like coral reefs and beaches, are a physical buffer and a critical ally in the climate fight. Sea-level rise is causing erosion of our natural coastal systems, and with it, an erosion of our livelihoods, the natural beauty of Caribbean beaches and our cultural heritage and ways of life. Sea level rise is increasing financial costs as we replace, rebuild and recover, even while repaying loans for infrastructure that is constantly damaged thereby causing increased debt. Resilience therefore becomes a moving goal post with every centimeter increase of our seas while global action appears more and more lethargic.
SIDS have consistently signaled that Sea-Level Rise must not erode our territorial boundaries and our statehood. Indeed we continue to affirm the principles of continuity of statehood, equity and fairness, and sovereign equality of states as we address the climate crisis.
Urgent action is needed by major polluters to keep 1.5 degrees alive, make good on the promises of the Paris Agreement, and take further steps to build adaptation and reduce losses and damages.
Development trajectories in SIDS, including our CARICOM states, hinge on global action on sea-level rise. Tourism, food and nutrition security, sustainable maritime transport, sustained availability of fresh water, disaster resilience, and overall citizen security and citizen well-being are all threatened by sea-level rise and will require ambitious global solidarity and action to course-correct and adapt.
Global concerted action is necessary and I confirm the continued support of CARICOM in urgently addressing this existential threat. International cooperation and multilateralism are critical to success in adaptation to sea-level rise, innovative financing solutions, necessary legal frameworks in international law, and harnessing of the natural advantages and benefits of a well-functioning eco-system.
We call on those countries that have caused and are causing global warming to do more to meet the commitments they have made in the interest of the survival of all. They can and they must, because if all SIDS do all we can do to reduce global warming, the sea will still rise. Our future hinges on collectively changing our relationship with the earth and its resources – a shift from short-sighted selfish development to long-sighted, collective prosperity, that accounts for future generations in the development equation. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,
(The author is the Secretary General of the CARICOM)
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