Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal, The University of the West Indies Mona Campus, Professor Dale Webber.
AS the Caribbean continues to feel the impact of climate change, one key message for the region is the need to focus on building resilience.
This was the message underlined by The State of the Caribbean Climate Report prepared by the Climate Studies Group Mona of The University of the West Indies for the Caribbean Development Bank.
Virtually launched yesterday, the report said the success of the measures and ultimately of a regional response is dependent on the commitment or buy-in of national and regional decision-makers (within government, private sector, civil society, academia and other relevant stakeholder groups) to commit to: working together to decide upon and achieve agreed climate resilience targets; employing evidence-based approaches as well as adaptive and scenario planning in support of decision-making; and supporting and strengthening existing expertise, resilience-building initiatives and use these to guide decision-making processes.
Outgoing President of the Caribbean Development Bank, Dr. William Warren Smith, stressed that early investment could reduce economic damage and the loss of lives to disasters.
“Therefore, Caribbean countries must take early action and receive the full support of the development agents in implementing safeguard measures and investing in the appropriate climate resilient infrastructure,” he said.
In addition, Smith insisted that climate change adaptation and mitigation were more effective when fully integrated into an effective and fully sustainable development framework.
In his remarks, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal, The University of the West Indies Mona Campus, Professor Dale Webber, pointed to the report’s predictions that by the end of the century, the Caribbean would be experiencing 25 per cent less rainfall and insisted states must look to mitigation plans.
“Rainfall harvesting projects must now be implemented on a wide scale as they have been in the past by St. Lucia. We need to look also at deforestation, the change in forest coverage and what that means for our people. We need to look at urban and rural planning. We need to ensure that every building we erect and every road we build must be made with climate change in mind,” he said, adding that protecting food security must also be a major consideration at this time. (JMB)