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Climate Change is an existential threat to the Caribbean #1point5toStayAlive is a Panos Caribbean initiative to help make the Caribbean's case for 1.5°C. Since 2009, Small Island Developing States and many others have been calling for limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels to prevent the worst of climate change impacts. The inclusion of a 1.5°C temperature limit in the 2015 Paris Agreement was a major victory for vulnerable countries. |
#1point5toStayAlive Frontpage News
Climate Change Response Must Be Accompanied By Renewed Approach to Economic Development
Desmond Brown
CARIBBEAN360, 5 October, 2018
PICTURED: YVES RENARD,INTERIM COORDINATOR OF PANOS CARIBBEAN (PHOTO DESMOND BROWN)
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Friday October 5, 2018 (IPS) – In the face of the many challenges posed by climate change, Panos Caribbean, a global network of institutes working to give a voice to poor and marginalized communities, says the Caribbean must raise its voice to demand and support the global temperature target of 1.5 °C.
Ahead of the United Nations climate summit in December, Yves Renard, interim coordinator of Panos Caribbean, said advocacy, diplomacy and commitments must be both firm and ambitious.
He said this is necessary to ensure that the transition to renewable energy and a sharp reduction in emissions are not only implemented but accelerated.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
2018 Talanoa Dialogue – Making Caribbean Voices Heard!
The Paris Agreement of 2015 was a significant milestone in global efforts to limit dangerous climate change, but it requires radical measures and strong ambition in order to achieve its goals. At present, Parties’ pledged actions (Nationally Determined Contributions) put the world on a pathway to a 3 or 4 degree Celsius increase in average global temperatures. This is a far cry from the Paris Agreement goal to hold the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius and pursue efforts to limit the increase in global average temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. An increase in average global temperatures by 3 or 4 degrees would be catastrophic for the countries of the Caribbean region that are already experiencing deadly impacts of climate change with a 1 degree average increase.
| An island concept encountered throughout the South Pacific archipelago, talanoa is a Fijian term referring to an inclusive, transparent dialogue based on a process of sharing stories, building empathy and reaching decisions for the collective good and, as such, relies on the pooling of ideas, skills and experience from all participants. This Caribbean process will be inspired by this concept. |
There are important opportunities in 2018 for the Caribbean region to engage in these issues. At COP21, the Parties in the Climate Change Convention decided to convene a Facilitative Dialogue, later renamed the Talanoa Dialogue (see box, right), to take stock of the collective efforts of Parties in relation to progress towards the long-term goal of the Paris Agreement and to inform the preparation of new and / or revised nationally-determined contributions. The Dialogue offers the opportunity for all actors to contribute to the discussions and negotiations that will put the Paris Agreement into action, and the Secretariat of the Convention is inviting inputs. The first deadline is 2 April 2018 for discussions in conjunction with the April/May session of the COP. A second round of consultations will take place later in the year.
We encourage concerned organisations in the Caribbean – government agencies, civil society and faith-based organisations, trade unions, community groups, scientific institutions, private sector groupings – to make their voices heard in this process.
- Category: The Case for 1.5°C
Jamaica: Yvonne Budraham, Enterprising Woman Farmer
Yvonne ‘Donna’ Budraham started out as a hotel worker in Jamaica’s tourism industry upon graduation from high school. She worked long and hard hours, and longed for the day when she would be able to spend more time with her children.
Source: Adaptation Fund
- Category: Voices of the 1.5°C Allies
Global Climate Action Must Be Gender Equal
Hilda Heine, President of the Marshall Islands
The Guardian, 15 Novembe, 2017
Women bear the heaviest brunt of global warming, and are less empowered to contribute to solutions. A new action plan agreed at the Bonn climate talks aims to reverse this inequality, writes Hilda Heine, Marshall Islands president
- Category: 1.5°C Press
Partnerships and Investments for a More Climate-Resilient Caribbean
CARIBBEAN DEVELOPMENT BANK, 6 NOVEMBER, 2017
Climate resilience is a critical priority as the Caribbean Region seeks to protect development gains already achieved and to address the specific challenges and opportunities presented to improve resilience in a range of sectors; particularly, infrastructure (roads, airports, ports, coastal and river defences), tourism, agriculture and renewable energy and energy efficiency. Climate resilience is a key priority in the Caribbean Development Bank’s (CDB) work and investments. CDB has been actively improving the resilience of its portfolio in climate-sensitive sectors such as water, agriculture and physical infrastructure. CDB mobilises and facilitates access to concessionary resources from global partners to help its BMCs finance the effective implementation of policies and investments as part of their wider sustainable development programme.
- Category: Voices of the 1.5°C Allies
Building Climate Resilience in Toledo District, Belize
SOURCE CARIBBEAN DEVELOPMENT BANK
- Category: Voices of the 1.5°C Allies
Connecting Communities to Tackle Climate Change in Jamaica
SOURCE CARIBBEAN DEVELOPMENT BANK
- Category: Voices of the 1.5°C Allies
What Islands Want: build resilience and recognise “loss and damage”
PRESS RELEASE. Bonn, Germany. 14 November 2017.
With 20,000 participants coming from all corners of the world and with literally hundreds of meetings, panel discussions and side events taking place each day over more than two weeks, there are many important issues being debated and negotiated at a global gathering such as the Climate Change Conference currently taking place in Germany.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
In the eye of the storm: small island states call for action at climate change summit
Irwin Loy
IRIN, 7 November, 2017
Salome Raqiyawa has witnessed three life-changing calamities in a single year. For her, climate change is more than CO2 emissions, scientific projections and grave predictions for tomorrow: It’s her only explanation for what’s happening now to her tiny village perched along the side of a highway on Fiji’s main island.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
Why the Post-Paris Climate Challenge Is Even Harder Than We Thought
Fred Pearce
Yale Environment 360, 7 November, 2017
As international negotiators convene in Bonn, they must confront the stark conclusion of a new UN report: The national commitments under the Paris Agreement will not come close to providing the emissions reductions needed to avoid the most severe effects of climate change.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
The reality of climate change
United Nations Development Programme
November 2017
Primrose Thomas’ home was destroyed along with 90 percent of the houses and buildings in Barbuda. Powerful hurricanes washed away coastal villages and pristine beaches, carrying off the belongings and life memories of thousands of people here and across the Caribbean.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
The COP23 climate change summit in Bonn and why it matters
Damian Carrington
The Guardian, 5 November, 2017
Halting dangerous global warming means putting the landmark Paris agreement into practice – without the US – and tackling the divisive issue of compensation.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
Climate Science Special Report
United States Government Global Change Research Program
Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), Volume I, 3 November 2017
This assessment concludes, based on extensive evidence, that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
People in poorer countries five times more likely to be displaced by extreme weather
OXFAM
Uprooted by Climate Change Report, 2 November 2017
People in low and lower-middle income countries were five times more likely to be forced from their homes by “sudden-onset” weather disasters, like floods and storms, than people in richer countries, according to Oxfam.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
The Fiji UN Climate Summit 2017, COP23: what is at stake in Bonn?
Don Lehr, Lili Fuhr, Liane Schalatek
Heinrich Böll Foundation, 1 November 2017
The UN climate summit COP 23 will convene from 6 to 17 November 2017 in Bonn, Germany, under the presidency of the government of Fiji. This article provides an overview of key issues at stake and a summary of our expectations for the COP 23. It does not claim to be complete and is necessarily biased towards the issues that the authors and the Heinrich Böll Foundation follow more closely and consider relevant for the overall debate.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
Climate change isn’t just hurting the planet – it’s a public health emergency
Christiana Figueres
The Guardian, 31 October 2017
When the doctor tells you that your cholesterol is too high, you tend to listen and change your diet. When the world’s climate scientists tell us that temperatures are rising to dangerous levels, we should heed their advice. It’s time to give up climate change, it’s bad for our health.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
In Defense of the 1.5°C Climate Change Threshold
Lauren Legarda
Project Syndicate, 23 October 2017
According to a recent paper in the journal Nature, the world’s remaining “carbon budget” – the amount of carbon-dioxide equivalents that can be emitted before breaching the 1.5°C warming threshold – is somewhat larger than was previously thought. But this is no reason for complacency.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
Climate change in the Caribbean – learning lessons from Irma and Maria
Dr Michael Taylor
The Guardian, 6 October 2017
Alongside other emerging climate patterns, there is a strong case to be made that there is something unfamiliar about the Caribbean’s climate today. We are seeing repeated and prolonged droughts, an increase in the number of very hot days, intense rainfall events causing repeated localised flooding, and rising sea levels that are consuming the beautiful beaches on which tourism in our region depends.
- Category: 1.5°C Press
2018 - COP24: The Caribbean's Struggle to Stay Alive
Climate change is real, an indisputable fact that people across the globe have already experienced, given that extreme phenomena are now common, while their impact is greater.
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Science and geophysical evidence not only point to this change, they stress it. In fact, the term climate change is no longer really pertinent, as this disruption in climatic patterns is already part of our lives and not some forecasted occurrence that might be avoided.
What we can do, what we are called to do, is to simultaneously alleviate or mitigate the impact of global warming to date and engage in concrete measures to contain any further heating of the atmosphere and the oceans.
This is all the more urgent as the impacts we are already experiencing result from an increase of roughly 1 degree above pre-industrial temperatures.
The 1.5° target is already a major concession
This means that the 1.5° target fixed by the Paris Agreement (2015) as a tentative optimal goal is already a major concession, for it entails significantly greater impacts, both in number and in severity, than now accepting as it does a further rise in temperature albeit limited to half a degree.
Hence, the 1.5° target does not mean an improvement on current conditions – it simply means containing the worsening of these conditions. But these will get worse, meaning that the impacts will be more devastating.
This is all the more certain as the 1.5° target refers to a planetary average, which masks regional disparities, whether in terms of differences in temperature levels or impacts due to the general warming.
In this context, the specific circumstances of small island developing states (SIDS) give rise to unique vulnerabilities, as evidenced in recent events and in the limitations they face in terms of response capacities, namely due to limited finances.
For us in the Caribbean, climate change signifies stronger hurricanes, more drought and resulting water shortages, a rise in sea level, heat waves, and warmer days and nights.
It is important to stress that, though the devastation wrought by hurricanes is more spectacular and hence more newsworthy, the impact of droughts is equally damaging in terms of food security, while an increase in heat waves and the number of hotter days and nights will affect – are already affecting – people’s health and wellbeing.
- Category: The Case for 1.5°C
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