For the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the impact of climate change is a reality and not academic, manifesting as a sobering reminder especially during the hurricane season that lasts from July to November.
It is for this reason, that the Community must continue to strongly advocate for climate justice and climate finance. Jamaica’s Prime Minister, Dr. the Most Hon. Andrew Holness, who assumed the Chairmanship of CARICOM on 1 July 2025, pledged that his country will be a “strong advocate” on the climate front. He made the commitment at the opening ceremony of the Forty-ninth Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM on 6 July in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Climate finance, a matter of “the Region’s survival and prosperity”, was one of the key items on the agenda of the Meeting.
“For others, the issue of climate change may be an academic discussion between scientists trying to determine whether the data set is accurate or whether historically, climate has changed overtime, and therefore climate changing now is nothing new. But last year, just around this time, Jamaica was staring down the earliest forming and perhaps the quickest forming Category 4 hurricane, which devastated a third of our island. So, for us, climate change is not an academic discussion; climate change is real. We live it almost every day. The impact of this has to be understood at the fiscal level, need for financing, but certainly because of our size,” he pointed out during his address at the opening of the Conference.
Dr Holness added that as the Region prepares for COP30 in Brazil later this year, “our call is urgent and clear: the promises of the Paris Agreement must be met—both in emissions reductions and access to climate finance at the level and scale required.”
