Global warming objective not optional for us – Moses
Published:Monday | March 7, 2022 | 12:07 AMChristopher Serju/Senior Gleaner Writer
KEEPING GLOBAL warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius over the next decade may be convenient for the rest of the globe but for the Caribbean that objective is mandatory, according to chief executive officer of the Caribbean Climate Smart Accelerator, Racquel Moses.
Responding to questions from The Gleaner about the recently released findings of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), titled ‘Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability’, she said the region has no other option but to meet that target.
“It’s not optional for us. We don’t have another path to survival. There will be mass migration and most of the people in the region will have to leave if we don’t limit global warming to 1.5 degrees,” she explained.
These are things that markets, as well as insurance companies and global citizens need to pay attention to. Greater focus needs to be paid as well to the work being done in the region, the difference this is making and the kind of solutions being pioneered.
“We typically don’t get a lot of press about the leadership role that we have, whether it is in producing the report or in coming up with new solutions,” according to Moses, who pointed out that the report wasn’t all negative. One of the positives she referenced was the partnerships between governments, civil society and the sector, which have been making a significant difference, especially in increasing the adaptive capacity of vulnerable people.
“We have fewer degrees of separation and so we have more of an ability to make those connections and have them make a difference for us. Some of the good news is about funding for adaptation, which is adapting to the changes we are already seeing. That is making a difference and so what we need to do is ramp up that effort as we go along.”
CLIMATE ADAPTATION
On the question, for example, of climate adaptation, she pointed to the fact that Bermuda has already achieved water security, even though they have no national network for piped water and depend entirely on rain water.
“They don’t have pipes that connect the country, but they collect their rainwater and so every house is an independent water collection unit. In Barbados, they have the most intense solar water heating infrastructure anywhere and Trinidad is moving towards being a net exporter of green hydrogen. Costa Rica is one of only seven countries on the planet that can run for 300 days on renewable energy and so there are a lot of things that we can learn from each other within the region.
“There is also a lot that the world can learn from us and because we are small, we do not necessarily get that press about the things that we are doing right.”
The flipside of the coin, as Moses pointed out, is that with the region shooting for 1.5 degrees Celsius in global warming, the outlook is not good.
“We are not going to hit that mark on our current trajectory and the impact in terms of livelihoods, the impact on biodiversity, on the most vulnerable – all of those things are being exacerbated by our failure to meet the targets that we have set.”