If the Report deriving from the Forty-Seventh Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) held in Grenada in the wake of Hurricane Beryl is anything to go by, it would appear that the member countries of the regional movement are not prepared to simply take it ‘on the chin’ and move on. A report prepared by Barbados’ Ambassador to CARICOM, David Commissiong, not only provides an overview of the damage done to member countries in the wake of Beryl’s tirade but also suggests that CARICOM will be seeking to hold the rich countries of the North accountable for what they say is a climate-driven occurrence.
The essence of the response by CARICOM Heads to Beryl’s onslaught reposes in what the Barbadian diplomat says in his report on the post-Beryl summit was “the unanimous opinion of the Conference that the phenomenon of ‘global warming’ is at the heart of these increasingly violent hurricanes like Beryl, that periodically cause damage to Caribbean countries and that the current scenario in which the wealthy developed countries that are responsible for ‘global warming’ are providing little or no resources to assist Caribbean nations to rebuild and repair is fundamentally ‘unjust and unacceptable.’” It is a sharp and clinical declaration that sends a signal that beyond their own fixing and repairing effort, CARICOM member countries, this time around, will be seeking to hold developed countries accountable.