(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) CARICOM Secretary-General Edwin Carrington is calling for the expedition of the Climate Change strategic plan and accompanying action plan which would mainstream critical issues related to the impact of Climate Change on the Region.
In remarks read by CARICOM Secretariat’s Garfield Barnwell, Director of Sustainable Development, to the Opening Ceremony of the Second Climate Change Conference held in Castries Saint Lucia on Tuesday, the CARICOM Secretary-General pointed to the devastating effects of climate change on the region’s capacity to foster sustainable development, asserting that it is the most demanding challenge facing the World today, second only to the current global financial crisis.
In this context the Secretary-General told the CARICOM Climate Change Centre that their utmost priority had to be the completion of the Climate Change Strategy as a potent weapon against the effects of Climate Change.
The Draft Climate Change Strategic Plan developed by the CARICOM Climate Change Centre is awaiting endorsement from the Council for Economic Trade and Development (COTED) before it is submitted to the Conference of Heads of Government for final approval in July.
Mr Carrington also called for greater collaboration of key stakeholders in the Region asserting that this was necessary to meet the challenges, negotiate effectively in the international arena and mobilize the required resources for the region’s climate change programmes.
He challenged the Conference to take bold steps and unite as a Region to tackle “the complex and interrelated aspects of Climate Change.” If the Community failed to unite and act, he said, then it would be “contributing to the persistent poverty and further erosion of the quality of life and the economic viability of the Region and the world.”
The Secretary-General subsequently commended the Alliance of Small Island Development States (AOSIS), led by Grenada for representing and articulating the interests of the Region and to Antigua and Barbuda for its role in 2008 as chair of the G77 Group that “so ably sustained our positions in the various negotiating theatres during 2008.”
He however noted that the two major obstacles were still the question of the global target for greenhouse emissions reductions and who should bear the burden for those reductions and intimated that the Community had much work do in preparation of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Denmark Copenhagen in December of this year. “Let’s demonstrate the true meaning of regional integration as we walk this road together and speak with one voice,” his statement concluded.
The two-day Conference under the theme: Mainstreaming Climate Change for the Sustainable Development of the Caribbean is organized by the CARICOM Climate Change Centre to evaluate the outcomes of its flagship programme – the Mainstreaming Adaptation to Climate Change (MACC) project which will expire on March 31 2009 and to share best practices with its wide cross-section of stakeholders and development partners. Located in Belize, the centre was established in 2004 to coordinate the Caribbean region’s response to climate change.
