Resilience key to fighting climate change
Key to dealing with the impact of climate change is buildingresilience, insists Minister in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Investment, Marsha Caddle.
Addressing the Rotary Clubs in Barbados youth panel discussion on “Climate Change and Climate Resilience”, she outlined while larger countries have to look more into the mitigating of emissions, small island developing states have to look instead towards adaptation and in creating economic sectors that are less vulnerable to the climate.
“When we speak on climate proofing economies, we mean that we make sure that the tourism sector and other sectors that are very vulnerable to climate change and climate variability, that we build resilience. One of the other ways of climate proofing the economy is to start building out sectors that arenaturally resistant to climate change.
“If you have a hurricane or other extreme weather event, those will affect your capacity to transport or export, airports and sea ports may not have easy access, so you have to be able to create products that do not have high transportation costs, where you can hit send and they would be able to be transported digitally. So a big part of what we need to do to climate proof the economy is to continue to invest in high value, high skilled products that do not require high levels of transportation,” she said, pointing out that the music industry was one such area.
In addition, Caddle who was the facilitator of the event asserted that small islands must invest in resilient infrastructure before an event occurs and would need quick access to large amounts of money post disaster.
She noted while Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) was a mechanism that provided small amounts of emergency funding, in cases where there was significant damage, there would be a need for more.
“The mechanism CCRIF right now is one where everyone contributes and it is really a bit of a ‘meeting turn’ in a sense because you put your money in and you get it back later and that is not the mechanism that will help us. We need a mechanism where emitting countries put their money in and those of us who have to deal with the effects take it out in order to be able to respond after the fact,” she stressed.
Commending them on their various country presentations, she charged the youth gathered in the Graduate Studies Conference Room, Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies yesterday with preparing a resolution for government and Caricom, outlining what needs to consider in terms of developing a policy for building climate resiliency.
“Deliver to us the outcome of your deliberations so we can use it as an input to our policy making,” she encouraged. (JMB)