James Fletcher | Case for climate justice for the Caribbean

The countries in the Caribbean, like other small island developing states (SIDS), are on the frontline of the battle against climate change. For many developed countries in the global North, climate change is still an academic issue – something to be debated and investigated. For them, the discussion centres mostly around what will happen by the end of this century. However, for us in the Caribbean, climate change is a clear and present danger, something that we are living and experiencing every day of our lives.

The facts are clear and irrefutable. The Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has shown that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are at their highest concentrations in at least two million years, while the concentrations of the other two greenhouse gases, methane and nitrous oxide, are at their highest levels in at least 800,000 years. It has been 45 years since our planet had a colder-than-average year, and human influence has warmed the climate at a rate that is unprecedented in the last 2,000 years.

For SIDS, this is translating into more excessively warm days, significant variability in rainfall, warmer oceans, loss of coastlines due to sea level rise, more intense droughts, more frequent flooding, and more severe hurricanes. Our marine and terrestrial ecosystems are under threat. Our rich biodiversity is in peril. Water insecurity is becoming a serious concern. Food security is being threatened by warmer temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns. Our oceans are getting warmer and more acidic, and this is negatively impacting our fisheries sector. Additionally, our coral reefs are being damaged by the increasing ocean temperatures and acidity, and this in turn is affecting the dive sector and the tourism industry on which so many of our island economies depend.

PACE AND TENOR

This is why the pace and tenor of the discussion on global warming in the Caribbean cannot be influenced by the gradualism that the phrase ‘climate change’ implies. Our dialogue has to shift to one that recognises the gravity of the climate crisis that we are experiencing and the existential threat that it poses to all SIDS.

The avenue that exists to address the threat of climate change is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was signed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. Since 1995, the countries that are parties to the convention have met annually to take stock of the progress of the global battle against climate change and to agree on new measures that should be taken to address the threats posed by climate change, including means of providing support to the countries that are most vulnerable. The UNFCCC is a multilateral mechanism for dealing with a problem that, although viewed initially as an environmental issue, has wide-reaching and profound economic, social and political consequences. In December 2015, the parties to the UNFCCC came together at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) and adopted the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement committed, among other things, to “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels,” and “making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development”.

Unfortunately, despite the goals agreed to in the Paris Agreement and the commitments made in nationally determined contributions by developed countries, our planet is headed for warming of 2.4 degrees Celsius or higher. The last seven years have been the hottest our planet has experienced since records began in 1880. Yet, since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015, G20 countries have continued to subsidise fossil fuels by US$3 trillion, and these same countries committed US$151 billion to fossil fuels in their respective COVID-19 recovery packages. Conversely, the financial support to tackle climate change that was promised in 2009 to developing countries of US$100 billion annually from 2020, is far from being realised. Oxfam reported in 2020 that of the estimated annual average of US$59.5 billion in climate finance that was claimed by developed countries, the climate-specific net assistance that was received may be no more than US$19 billion to US$22 billion.

NOT SUPPORTED

At the most recent global climate summit in Glasgow, China and India prevented the adoption of an agreement on the phasing out of dirty coal power; a pledge to transition to electric vehicles was not supported by the United States (US), China, Germany, South Korea or Japan; a much-touted US-China climate declaration contained very little substance on what would actually be done; and the US, the European Union and other developed countries rejected the establishment of a new Loss and Damage fund for vulnerable countries that are experiencing the irreversible impacts of climate change. In other words, SIDS and other developing countries that are the most vulnerable to the impacts of a crisis they did not cause were, once again, the ones asked to make compromises.

The question that we must now answer as climate-vulnerable Caribbean countries is: should we continue to rely solely on multilateral negotiations as our only recourse for action on climate change? Has the time come for us to demand climate justice at the international level for our compromised livelihoods, our threatened biodiversity, our diminished quality of life, our lost land mass, our damaged public infrastructure, and our imperilled lives? In a landmark decision in October 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution recognising the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Therefore, should we now start demanding justice from the corporations and countries that have denied, and continue to deny, us the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment? My answer is, yes. Hopefully, our Caribbean leaders will soon come to that conclusion.

James L. Fletcher is managing director of SOLORICON and founder of Caribbean Climate Justice Project. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.