Climate Policy : The Caribbean Perspective

This post marks the initial entry in a new series of postings on the climate policy discourse in the English Caribbean. These are the unedited main points; remarks made by Ambassador K. G. A. Hill at the 2009 Fourth Conference on the Environment by Jamaican Institute of Environmental Professionals.

1. Climate change policies are but extensions of those already being formulated and implemented for sustainable development. Governments in the Caribbean ought not to lose sight of this as they organise their institutional arrangements and in deploying resources. The social, environmental, and economic policies have not resulted in the “growth” and socio-economic transformation necessary to increase public welfare. There is no “cushion” of surplus capital in the challenging period of a warming earth.
2. Even as the Caribbean governments and their citizens prepare at the national and regional levels, the negotiating process picks up speed at the international.
3. In the Caribbean the debate should be no less vigorous, with attention to understanding and responding to alternative proposals for an equitable and efficient set of greenhouse gas emission regulating mechanisms. The relative merits of a carbon tax or the cap-and-trade schemes should be a priority.
4. The regions response to climate changes will be an important factor in determining the allocation of capital and the distributional effects.
5. A regional climate change policy is a regional energy security policy, a land use policy, a food security policy and ultimately a policy for stability and decency.
6. It will be up to Caribbean scientists to refine the scenarios, improve their data collection, and sharpen their empirical observation tools as the only basis for sound national and regional policies.
7. The programmes should be done in the framework of the existing institutional bilateral frameworks, and considerably scaled up to the levels of head of state and governments.
8. The CARICOM/CARIFORUM (Caribbean I) arrangements require considerable retooling. The organisations are constrained in terms of their limited capabilities and inadequate level of funding. Organisational restructuring, the bane of current economic growth and development models continue.
9. The effectiveness of the ACS relative to the call on the region’s resources may need to be considered in light of the focus that must be given to climate change activities.
10. Starting in the national jurisdiction, the central political role of foreign ministry must be redefined to ensure that the global and all-encompassing nature of climate change is coordinated and integrated in all policies and programmes and at all levels of the political structures. At the same time the technical capabilities of the relevant line Ministries Departments and Agencies will require additional resources.
11. The universities, other tertiary bodies, the professional and research bodies, the business sector, the trades unions (by sector and specialisation), NGOs and the Press and audio-visual media especially radio are all important to build awareness, and prepare for the transitional process already underway on the path to low carbon energy use.
12. Similarly, the Latin American System (SELA), which groups the Americas, excepting Canada and the United States and other non-independent territories together in regional and international policy issues, but with no discernable focus on climate change.