The Government of the United Kingdom and the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the implementation of a project to enhance the region’s capacity to deal with climate change in a comprehensive way.
The signing between British High Commissioner Fraser Wheeler and Executive Director of the CCCCC Dr Kenrick Leslie took place at the Caricom Secretariat at Liliendaal yesterday. The amount being provided for in the agreement is 70,000 Pounds Sterling.
Under the MOU, the Government of the UK through its Department for International Development (DFID) and the Foreign Office will facilitate the development of a Caribbean Community Strategy on Climate Change.
The strategy will cover critical elements of adaptation and mitigation of the anticipated impacts of climate change. It will look at improving capacity in economic and physical planning with a view to gearing for climate change.
The project will seek to build capacity to promote Caricom’s positions in international negotiations, catalyse efforts to evolve regional cohesion and common positions on climate change-related issues and to improve response planning.
The agreement is in the context of the development of the UK Government’s Joint Caribbean Climate Change Strategy which will coordinate and strengthen links of UK support behind Caribbean efforts to reduce the risks from climate change.
The CCCCC coordinates Caricom’s response to climate change and executes a number of projects which seek to build national and regional capacity to address the increasing vulnerabilities of Caribbean societies to climate change. The Centre is engaged in the development of a range of services for the Caribbean Community.
The Caribbean Climate Change Strategy will be presented to major organs of the Caribbean Community, viz the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED), and the Com-munity Council.
Additional anticipated outcomes of the project include heightened Caricom impact for international negotiations, e.g. inform the region’s position at the UN Conference for Climate Change in Bali, Indonesia in December, incorporating climate change into regional governance, and improved capacity in economic and physical planning.
Project implementation will include meetings with stakeholders at the political, public and private sectors and civil society levels across the region, training on international negotiations and lobbying techniques, process management, economic policy and physical policy planning.
In delivering remarks at the ceremony, Secretary General of Caricom Edwin Carrington said that for people in the Caribbean Community, climate change is a matter of critical importance “for our very survival.”
He said that to ignore the spectre of climate change and its anticipated impacts would be to expose the region to unprecedented consequences, “as well as display poor stewardship, in our responsibility for the natural and built environment, and the regional patrimony.”
Carrington said that Caricom member states are now preparing to participate in the 13th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, scheduled to take place in Bali, Indonesia later this year. “This session is mandated to begin negotiations on the post-2012 regime of the Kyoto Protocol. The outcome of these negotiations will certainly influence the region’s development efforts,” he said.
