Editorial | Minister Charles’ environmental challenge

Pearnel Charles Jr may say it is early days yet. He will nonetheless find that there is no time for delay in establishing priorities for his super ministry, some of whose missions, unless he is clear about the tasks, are likely to fall in conflict with each other. Moreover, events are moving too rapidly on the global front for Jamaica not to be fully, and urgently, engaged in the environmental issues of the day.

The situation, however, demands that Mr Charles, in setting out his priorities, engage first with a wide range of interests, including experts on environmental and developmental policy, so as to avoid potentially costly mistakes. This can be done without sacrificing urgency.

After last month’s general election, Mr Charles was appointed minister for housing, urban renewal, the environment and climate change. The only fully articulated issue in any of these portfolios, and the one that enjoys the Government’s clear political commitment, is its promise to deliver 70,000 homes over the next five years. Not only was this set out in the Jamaica Labour Party’s election manifesto, it was central to their election campaign. Which is it not to say that environmental and climate change issues were not addressed.

Indeed, the manifesto reiterated the Government’s intention to have half of Jamaica’s electricity generated from renewable sources within the next decade, and up to 80 per cent by 2037. It also talked about enhanced management of the island’s biodiversity, including locking in the protection of the Cockpit Country. It also committed the Government to designing “our 2050 pathway to meet the Paris Agreement goals”.

Those observations notwithstanding, we are concerned that the environmental/climate change question has not, neither in the manifesto nor in statements by government officials, been treated with the same sense of urgency as housing. They do not have the appeal with voters as a promise to deliver homes.

Against this backdrop, it is not an unreasonable expectation that housing will command the larger part of Mr Charles’ focus and that he will maintain the approach of recent predecessors of converting green spaces, including the country’s most fertile lands and vulnerable biodiverse areas, to real estate development. Yet, in this circumstance of competing and conflicting mandates – of the demands of shelter versus defending the environment – Mr Charles will, unfortunately, be his own check and balance.

It is, in part, for that reason, but also because it makes rational economic and sociological sense, that he, we repeat, should make urban renewal the centrepiece of his housing policy, rather than greenfield developments with their often environmental-straining demands.

NATIONAL CRUSADE

At the same time, the minister must move quickly to add substance to the already-broadly articulated policies for the management of the environment, so as to forestall the dangers associated with global warming. He must approach the environment and climate change as a national crusade. There are good reasons for this.

The earth’s temperature has risen by around one degree centigrade since the Industrial Revolution, causing major disruption in climate patterns. Countries like Jamaica have experienced on scorching days, warmer nights, long spells of droughts, unseasonal and unpredictable rainfall and floods, higher sea levels and eroded coastlines. All of these pose existential economic threats, especially to the critical tourism industry.

The Paris Agreement was aimed at mitigating the threat of global warming by keeping the rise in the earth’s temperature to under two degrees by the end of the century, with a target of 1.5 degrees. Even if those targets are met, the warmer planet and melting polar caps could mean a rise in global sea levels by as much as 2.5 metres.

In Jamaica’s case, according to a 2017 government policy document, if nothing happens, by the 2050s the average temperature in Jamaica could be higher by between 0.7 and one degree, and could rise by as much as three degrees by the 2080s. Further, over the next three decades, average rainfall could plummet by over 40 per cent, although the future variability in weather patterns could also mean up to 18 per cent more rain. By the end of the century, the sea level around the island could be up by more than half a metre.

Noted the policy document: “Jamaica’s coastline is approximately 886 kilometres long and is the habitat for many of the island’s diverse species and ecosystems, including sandy beaches, rocky shores, estuaries, wetlands, seagrass beds and coral reefs. It is also the location for most of the critical infrastructure, formal and informal housing, as well as a high percentage of the island’s economic activities, including tourism, mixed farming, fishing, shipping and mining.”

That, in other words, says the bastion of the national economy is at risk. It is around this that Mr Charles should seek to mobilise Jamaicans.