Climate change is an issue not heard of much on the island, but regionally and internationally, it has the attention of many policy-makers. The matter is of such importance that should be brought to the level of Kingdom policy makers. Climate change is an issue that is already impacting small island nation states and their quality of life for their citizens.
Barbados Prime Minister (PM) Freundel Stuart, has called for a coordinated approach among regional governments to scale back the negative impact of climate change on their respective economies. This challenge was issued while Hon. PM Stuart addressed a joint British and Australian High Commissions conference under the theme: "Climate Change in the Caribbean: Equipping Policy Makers to Combat the Threat.
Aruba’s Prime Minister Mike Eman has invited the Prime Ministers of Curacao and Sint Maarten for a summit early December. Both leaders have agreed to meet with their Aruban colleague in an effort to come to a constructive cooperation in the Kingdom together with Holland.
Eman said that the trans-Atlantic relationship between the European and Caribbean parts of the Kingdom offered many possibilities and now was the time to give content to this potential, and to make it the objective of the three Caribbean leaders to cooperate within the Kingdom in order to achieve concrete results in improving the quality of life for all partners.
In the coming weeks the countries will decide on the agenda points. As a community, we hope that climate change will be an agenda point. The three Caribbean parts of the Dutch Kingdom are at risks of climate change just like the rest of the Caribbean region.
Some island nations in the Caribbean according to a study, "The Economics of Climate Change Adaptation in the Caribbean," carried out by the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility stood to loose six per cent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually from wind, storm surge and inland flooding. Researchers have further warned that in a worst case scenario, climate change has the potential to increase these expected losses by a further one to three per cent of GDP, by 2030.
The study launched in February involved eight pilot nations and countries, Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Jamaica, and St. Lucia, and was supported by Caribbean Risk Managers, the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and others.
The study is said to be of immense value to not only Caribbean policy-makers, but also the business sector, in their efforts to develop and implement sound adaptation strategies and plans.
Barbados has carried out its own study, "The Impact of Climate Change on the Barbadian Economy and the Consequences of Doing Nothing."
Policy makers and technocrats have been asked to integrate climate change considerations into development planning, program budgeting, with a view to reducing the negative impacts associated with this phenomenon.
Depending on a country’s characteristics, the preliminary results suggest that risk mitigation initiatives can cost-effectively avert up to 90 per cent of the expected loss in 2030 under a high climate change scenario.
The best approach for each country is determined specifically by its topography, exposure to hurricanes, and value and vulnerability of assets.
Besides using the opportunity of the summit of the three prime ministers of the Dutch Caribbean to bring the climate change issue up to a Kingdom level for discussion, on the local scene, a climate change parliamentary select committee should be established as well which would allow policy-makers to start looking at the issue and at the same time engaging stakeholders on the matter in order to develop a plan of action as a nation on how to deal with climate change.
Roddy Heyliger