Regional Leader urges CARICOM Heads to be more aggressive on global climate change agenda

Mar 05, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – Heads of Government of CARICOM States converged this week on Ambergris Caye, Belize for the Thirty-Third Inter-sessional Meeting of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to conduct a series of meaning discussions.

Dr. Colin Young, Executive Director of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC/5Cs)

High on the meeting agenda was the issue of climate change, the twenty-sixth meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP26), and the next steps for COP27.
In a presentation to CARICOM Heads, Dr. Colin Young, Executive Director of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC/5Cs), discussed the outcomes of the Glasgow Climate Pact relative to the CARICOM expectations. He indicated that while COP26 resulted in progress in a number of key areas of importance to CARICOM and Small Island Developing States (SIDS), the overall Glasgow Climate Pact package for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) failed to close the ambition gap in line with the science of 1.5oC and failed to deliver the US$100 billion annually by 2020 that was promised to developing countries.
He said too that the Glasgow Climate Pact did not result in the establishing of a loss and damage facility in line with the expectations of SIDS.
Leading up to COP27, Dr. Young encouraged CARICOM Member States to be fully engaged by having early and meaningful engagements both at the political and technical levels to ensure that the region’s priorities are reflected in the Work Programmes and processes established to bridge the ambition gaps at COP26, namely: a work programme to accelerate pre-2030 emissions reductions for 1.5.
Dr. Young also updated the Heads of the Government of the damning findings of the recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report called: “Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability for SIDS and encouraged Heads to rely on the broad body of undeniable facts presented in the report to continue urgent calls for increase access, speed and scale to climate finance to fund climate adaptation initiatives in Member States.
The Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre is an inter-governmental Caribbean Community (CARICOM) institution that is mandated by the CARICOM Heads of Government to coordinate the Region’s response to climate change.
It maintains the Caribbean’s most extensive repository of information and data on climate change, specific to the region, which in part enables us to provide climate change-related policy, advice and guidelines to CARICOM Member States. In this role, the Centre is recognized by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the United Nations Environment Programme, and other international agencies as the focal point for climate change issues in the Caribbean.
The Centre is also one of the few institutions recognized as a Centre of Excellence by United Nations Institute for Training and Research. CCCCC is empowering the Caribbean Community to act on climate change.