‘Make climate change a priority’
DR Ulric Trotz, senior adviser to the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, recently reminded Jamaicans of the danger of failing to make climate change a priority.
According to Trotz, there is no disputing the devastation the changing climate threatens, especially for small island states. “Hundreds of millions of people face water shortages that will worsen as temperatures rise and food production… decline in low altitude regions near the equator, particularly in the seasonally dry tropics, as even small temperature increases decrease crop yields in these areas,” said Trotz, quoting from the Fourth Assessment Report of the leading climate research body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“The populations most vulnerable to climate change-induced food shortages are those that depend on climate-sensitive food and water supplies and also lack the economic resources and government support to plan for or recover from extreme events, such as floods or prolonged droughts,” he added.
Trotz noted that the Caribbean is a region comprised of many such states.
“Of particular concern for the Caribbean is flooding caused by sea level rise, which is expected to affect millions of additional people every year by the end of this century, with our small islands and low-lying coastal countries facing the highest risks,” he said. “Sea level rise exposes coasts to higher risk of flooding and erosion, which would exacerbated by growing population, increased human infrastructure within flood-prone areas, and human activities that increase erosion or local subsidence (gradual sinking of an area).”
At the same time, he said that climate change puts other industries at risk.
“Global climate change has emerged as the greatest threat to the sustainable development agendas of Caricom countries,” said Trotz, who was speaking at the 2010 dialogue for development lecture, hosted by the Planning Institute of Jamaica in Kingston on November 16.
“Projects from the regional climate models definitely point to a warmer and drier Caribbean in the future, with dire consequences for economic activities in the tourism, agriculture, and financial sectors, for the water and the health sectors, for property and insurance and the regional resource base for the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals in the prescribed time frame and, indeed, for the realisation of the region’s sustainable development goal,” he added.
Given these realities, Trotz said that it is essential that Jamaica and other islands of the Caribbean make climate change a top priority. Critical to this effort, he said, is:
* an increase in government campaign efforts to raise public awareness about the issues surrounding climate change; and
* the design and implementation of strategies that will stave off the ill effects of the changing climate.
“Many of the unavoidable, near-term consequences of global warming can be addressed through adaptation strategies, such as building levees (an embankment designed to prevent the flooding of a river) and restoring wetlands to protect coasts, altering farm practises to grow crops that can survive higher temperatures, building infrastructures that can withstand extreme weather, and implementing public health programmes to help people in cities survive brutal heat waves,” he said.