Regional NGO moves to advance Caribbean climate interests

PANOS Caribbean, together with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), will today launch a two-day climate change workshop geared at helping to advance the interests of Caribbean small-island developing states.The workshop, which is to see the participation of some 12 journalists and eight artistes from the region, is being held in St Lucia, ahead of this year's international climate talks set for Paris, France in December.

The journalists and artistes, including Jamaica's Aaron Silk, are complemented by participants from St Lucia's Ministry of Sustainable Development, Energy, Science, and Technology - another partner in the workshop.

"The workshop is a prep meeting for Paris, pulling together a range of stakeholders, including popular artistes and journalists with the aim to come up with a strategy to bring attention to the small island position of '1.5 degrees to stay alive'," said Indi Mclymont Lafayette, country coordinator and programme director with Panos.

"We really want to ensure that if an agreement is signed in Paris, it is one that won't mean the death of small islands in the long run," she added.

The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), including CARICOM, have as far back as the Copenhagen Talks in 2009, called for a long-term goal to "limit global average temperatures to well below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to long-term stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations to well below 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent".

At the time, science adviser to AOSIS Dr Al Binger predicted that given sea-level rise, residents of small island states would eventually have to 'swim for it'.

"We need to improve our boat-building art [and] teach our kids to swim because sooner or later, we are going to have to swim for it," he said.

Speaking more recently at the French Embassy-hosted climate change debate in Kingston this year, physicist and head of the Climate Studies Group Mona, Dr Michael Taylor, painted a grim picture for a Caribbean in a world where average global temperatures exceed 1.5 degrees.

According to Taylor, the two degrees advanced by developed country partners may prove "too much for us to deal with", given warmer days and nights and more variable rainfall, among other impacts,now being experienced.

Meanwhile, Mclymont Lafayette said the workshop - having educated artistes about climate change and journalists on reporting on it - would seek to craft a communication plan to bring a broader set of stakeholders up to date as to what is at stake for the region.

strategy

"We are looking at a strategy over the next few months of some of the things that could be done. [These include] the journalists to report on climate change; the artistes to use their performing platforms and media interviews to bring attention to the issues and the negotiators to work in tandem with them," she said.

"It would be good if we could have an awareness campaign leading up to Paris and also while in Paris, have a side event that would really capture a lot of the issues and provide a gateway for hearing or having good discussions on the impacts on the islands,"Mclymont Lafayette added.

The workshop - done with co-financing from Climate Analytics, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States and the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre - forms a part of a larger Panos project for which they continue to fundraise.

That project aims promote civil society involvement in the discourse on climate change in the region, through, among other things, facilitating their participation in the upcoming Paris Talks.

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