By Desmond Brown
RODNEY BAY, St. Lucia, Aug 01 2015, CNS – Caribbean and other Small Island Developing States (SIDS) continue to champion the phrase “1.5 to stay alive” in demanding that global temperature increases be kept as far below 1.5 degrees C as possible to limit the anticipated devastating effects of climate change on the world’s most vulnerable countries.
“We will clamour if we must, but they will hear us; 1.5 to stay alive,” Director General of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Dr. Didacus Jules Jules told a gathering of journalists and artistes from the region at the start of a two-day workshop held here this week.
The “Climate Justice” workshop was held ahead of the climate change conference – the 21st Conference of Parties – also known as COP 21, scheduled for Paris during November and December of this year.
The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), including the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), have as far back as the Copenhagen Talks in 2009, called for a long-term goal to “limit global average temperatures to well below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to long-term stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations to well below 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent”.
But for the countries of the Caribbean, the challenge associated with the ongoing climate change negotiations is that even if the goal to limit global warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees C is achieved, they will still experience severe adverse impacts for which stronger programmes of adaptation would necessarily have to be implemented.
St. Lucia’s Sustainable Development Minister Dr. James Fletcher said if temperatures warm by 2 degrees C or more, it will cause rainfall to reduce by 10-20 per cent.
“Almost every island of the Caribbean is going through a drought. Think of 10-20 percent less water than what you have now and you will get an idea of how serious this problem is from a water security angle,” he said.
But it is not just rising temperatures that will devastate life in the Caribbean but rising sea levels too.
Dr. Fletcher said the projection is for a 1-2 metre rise in sea levels by the end of the 21st century.
“A one meter sea level rise in the Caribbean area would mean approximately 13 hundred square kilometre of land area being lost,” the minister said.
That’s equal to the land area of Barbados, Antigua & Barbuda, St. Vincent & the Grenadines and Anguilla combined.
He said that sea level rise would also displace 110,000 people; damage 149 tourist resorts; five power plants; 21 CARICOM airports; and inundate lands surrounding 35 Caribbean ports; among other consequences.
In the coming months Caribbean countries will continue to vigorously encourage the international community to reach an agreement at COP21 to keep global warming below 2 degrees C. This is a crucial goal for Caribbean island nations that are particularly vulnerable to climate change and which only contribute 0.3 percent of global greenhouse emissions.
St. Lucia’s Ministry of Sustainable Development, Energy, Science, and Technology partnered with PANOS Caribbean, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States to hold the two-day climate change workshop.
