(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) World Environment Day is observed in many places across the world on 5 June every year. The day has been singled out to inspire awareness and enhance political attention and action towards the environment. It is an opportunity for many of us living in the developing world to think of our contribution and approach towards making the world a better place for ourselves, our children and grandchildren. This year’s theme is Your Planet Needs You – Unite to Combat Climate Change.
In the Caribbean Community, we are trying to come to terms with an emerging international order, highly interdependent and characterized by the incorporation of increasingly complex issues that are intertwined with the development processes, such as global environmental concerns, competitive pattern of growth, innovation, new technologies, social equity and institutional governance. Often these issues are managed under separate but complex legal regimes which impose significant constraints and challenges on small developing countries like ours in the Caribbean. It is for these reasons the Region has been making every effort to put in place a number of mechanisms and institutional arrangements to establish a “common regional economic space” to address these challenges and strengthen the Region’s identity in the global market space.
The earth’s well-being is an issue of significant importance to every nation in every part of the world, and the issue of the climate change is a global issue that requires global solutions. As small islands and low-lying coastal developing states, the stakes are high, since the Region is among the group of countries that have contributed the least to the problem of global warning but are among the most vulnerable to the consequences of climate change.
As the international community builds momentum to design a new climate change agreement in Copenhagen, Denmark in December, 2009, we call on all parties to fully address the gaps that for far too long have created the problem.
Climate Change is a long term problem that took decades to be recognized as a significant global problem and this generation needs to approach the problem head-on in ensuring that our actions do not harm future generations. In so doing, we need to recognize that environmental problems are neither achievable nor sustainable without opportunities for growth, development, and poverty alleviation.
As we recognise World Environment Day 2009, let us recommit ourselves towards working harder to ensure that our actions individually and collectively would not further undermine the available resources in the global environment.
