UNDP official bats for carpooling in Jamaica

Dr Elsie Laurence-Chounoune, the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) deputy representative to Jamaica, believes that the country can benefit from some environmental best practices such car pooling, even as she underscored the need for an appreciation of local circumstances, which might not make wholesale adoption practical.

The UNPD representative who attended Tuesday’s opening ceremony of the three-day climate change symposium ‘Uncut Conversations on Climate Change: Dialogue for the future’ at the Terra Nova Hotel, St Andrew, spoke with The Gleaner afterwards.

“I don’t think we should see it as really taking something that works elsewhere into Jamaica. Rather, it’s really looking at what has worked well and can be duplicated and it’s not only good for the environment but also for the people because you spend much less with two or three persons travelling together in one car. You don’t pay as much for gas, you share the cost so it’s really a win-win situation, I think,” she explained.

Dr Laurence-Chounoune pointed that even in Jamaica carpooling makes good sense especially for people working in the same office or nearby to each other, who have to travel far distances.

“Americans are used to it. They drive longer distance than here but you do also have a lot of traffic. People who live in Portmore, for example, or even Clarendon, come to work in Kingston so they do an hour. If you live within Kingston there may not be that much difference but if you live say in Clarendon, it does make sense that you carpool.”