Attributing the natural disasters that member states of CARICOM have faced recently to climate change, Chairman Gaston Browne on Monday said that it is time that major polluters are made legally liable for the damage they cause as he called for climate reparations for the region.
During his address at the opening of the 42nd Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community, Browne, who is the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, noted that the meeting was being held against the backdrop of economic, social, financial and environmental storms more intense than the hurricanes that swirl around the Caribbean every year during the season.
He noted that several member states are currently recovering from the effects of Hurricane Elsa and offered support on behalf of the people of Antigua and Barbuda.
“The recent volcanic eruption in St Vincent and the Grenadines and devastating floods in Guyana and Suriname, which displaced thousands of people and destroyed significant agricultural production, provide further evidence of the ongoing challenges that beset our Member States. These climatic events serve to underscore the vulnerability of the Region,” he continued while adding that like the rest of the world, the Caribbean is still battling to stem the economic and social tidal wave of COVID-19.
However, he pointed out, unlike the rest of the world, the Caribbean is battling the pandemic at the beginning of an Atlantic hurricane season that has already seen five storms within the first month. He pointed out that this season is forecast to be one of the busiest in recent years.
With this in mind, Browne said that the causes of the climate crisis have already been scientifically established, and it is time for those countries that have been irresponsible enough to continue their damaging emissions and practices to be held to account.
“It is my view that real progress on the climate crisis will only be made when the major polluters are made legally liable for the damage they cause. The current system of discretionary international assistance for climate damage, where pledges are honoured only fitfully, is both inadequate and inequitable. This is a call for climate reparations that CARICOM must take up urgently, and engage in vigorous diplomatic outreach to build international consensus on this issue,” he said.
Meanwhile, Secretary General Ambassador Irwin La Rocque in his remarks said that it was CARICOM’s influence, co-ordination and negotiating skills, which ensured that the Paris Agreement on Climate Change included the important aim of a global temperature rise being contained below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“For us climate change is a lived reality. It fuels the urgency for us to build resilience,” he added before saying that there is an urgent need for small vulnerable states, especially in the Caribbean, to have access to concessional development financing in order to achieve resilience prior to a disaster and not wait until after it strikes.
He noted that the Caribbean’s persistent advocacy on the need for a vulnerability index is receiving attention in the international community and that this underlines the value of acting in concert to achieve goals.
