The 36th Regular Meeting of Caricom Heads adopted the Caricom Declaration for Climate Action which outlines the Region’s priorities and called for urgent global action, citing extreme weather events here and in other countries.
Heads of Government recognised “that climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet and thus requires to be urgently addressed by all Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the Convention)” a statement released at the close of the July 2-4 meeting, held in Bridgetown, Barbados, said. The Declaration acknowledges the need for “the widest possible cooperation by all countries and their participation in an effective and appropriate international response, with a view to urgently accelerating the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions.”
It reaffirmed that Small Island Developing States (SIDS) remain a special case considering their unique and particular vulnerability to the adverse impacts of climate change, as acknowledged in the Convention and by the international community in multiple international fora since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. The Heads recognised that extreme weather and slow onset events and their adverse impacts including sea-level rise, coastal erosion, coral bleaching, flooding, ocean acidification, sea temperature rise, mangrove degradation, inundation and salinisation of coastal agricultural soils and residential areas, related to climate change, are fundamental threats to the sustainable development of low-lying Caribbean countries and island territories. Already, with global warming of less than one degree Celsius, SIDS including Caribbean countries, as well as Guyana and Suriname, are experiencing more intense storms, droughts, extreme weather events, accelerating sea-level rise and other life-threatening impacts, the statement attached to the conference Communique said.
The Region remains concerned about the poor response by the international community to the threats posed by the impacts of climate change, including the inadequacy of financial resources available to support the actions required to reduce its impacts in the Caribbean and asserted that the global goal of limiting the average temperature increase to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is inadequate for protecting critical ecosystems in SIDS from the adverse impacts of climate change and submits that it should instead be limited to “well below 1.5 degrees.”
The Heads also acknowledged the critical importance of negotiations under the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP), which culminate in Paris, France in December 2015, to advance efforts to close the pre-2020 mitigation ambition gap and to securing a new universal agreement that focuses the efforts of all parties towards stronger climate action. The meeting said Caribbean countries have demonstrated leadership, including through agreement on a common framework to support the transformation of their energy systems, and are adopting ambitious national strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As such, vulnerable Caribbean states, together with SIDS, have continued to emphasize the need for ambitious and urgent action to address climate change.
Caricom issued the following appeals, we:
- Urge all Parties to the Convention, with developed countries taking the lead, to work with urgency and purpose to achieve an ambitious, comprehensive and meaningful outcome in December 2015 at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP -21) in Paris;
- Stress that the Convention is, and should remain, the primary international, intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change and reaffirm the importance of continuing to apply the principles of the Convention;
- Call for the adoption of a new internationally legally binding agreement under the Convention that is in the form of a protocol and is applicable to all Parties at COP-21 in Paris (the 2015 Agreement);
- Call for the 2015 Agreement to include inter alia:
- a) provisions to address the specific needs and special circumstances of SIDS;
- b) enhanced provisions for supporting the adaptation needs of vulnerable developing countries, including provision of adequate, predictable, new and additional finance, technology and capacity building support, and strengthening of the institutional arrangements;
- c) loss and damage as a central and distinct element of the agreement, that should be treated separately from adaptation;
- d) the Technology Mechanism and the Warsaw REDD+ Framework;
- e) commitment by developed country parties to take the lead in scaling-up the provision of adequate, predictable, new and additional financial resources, and opportunities for other Parties willing to do so, to also contribute to scaling up climate finance;
- f) provision of support for capacity building and technology development and transfer to SIDS;
- g) an explicit objective of limiting long-term the global average temperature increase to below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, supported by aggregate mitigation commitments that represent a feasible pathway to achieving that goal;
- h) an explicit provision that parties fulfil and continuously enhance their mitigation commitments over time;
- i) five (5) year mitigation commitment cycles, with robust ex ante and ex post review and upward adjustment processes;
- j) provisions for measuring, reporting and verification of performance on commitments; and
- k) a compliance regime.
