Caricom chief: Caribbean must fight to keep 1.5C target alive

By Ryan Ba­choo

Caribbean coun­tries must con­tin­ue to fight to keep the glob­al 1.5-de­gree Cel­sius warm­ing tar­get with­in reach, with Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett warn­ing that aban­don­ing the am­bi­tion would leave small is­land and low-ly­ing coastal states in­creas­ing­ly ex­posed to ris­ing sea lev­els and ex­treme weath­er events.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on the side­lines of COP31 in An­talya, Türkiye, Bar­nett said while the first week of ne­go­ti­a­tions had been marked by en­cour­ag­ing dis­cus­sions and a will­ing­ness among coun­tries to en­gage, the re­gion was look­ing for con­crete ac­tion on emis­sions re­duc­tions and cli­mate fi­nanc­ing.

She said the Caribbean’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty made the 1.5-de­gree tar­get a mat­ter of sur­vival, par­tic­u­lar­ly as is­land states con­tin­ued to ex­pe­ri­ence the con­se­quences of cli­mate change de­spite con­tribut­ing rel­a­tive­ly lit­tle to glob­al green­house gas emis­sions.

“We are all watch­ing the wa­ter rise,” Bar­nett said, point­ing to the shared ex­po­sure of Caribbean and Pa­cif­ic is­land states.

“For me, the most im­por­tant thing is to en­sure that that 1.5 is not lost for­ev­er. Be­cause if that is lost for­ev­er, that means the wa­ter will rise around all of us. And as the small is­lands and the small­er coastal states, we pay that price first.”

Bar­nett said the re­gion was al­so bear­ing the cost of stronger and more fre­quent hur­ri­canes, de­spite not be­ing re­spon­si­ble for the emis­sions dri­ving the cli­mate cri­sis.

She ac­knowl­edged that some lead­ers had ques­tioned whether the 1.5-de­gree thresh­old could still be sal­vaged, but said this did not con­tra­dict the po­si­tion of coun­tries and or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing the Al­liance of Small Is­land States (AO­SIS), which con­tin­ue to in­sist that the am­bi­tion must be main­tained.

Ex­plain­ing the dis­tinc­tion, Bar­nett said the tar­get was mea­sured as a glob­al av­er­age over time, mean­ing tem­po­rary over­shoots did not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean it had been per­ma­nent­ly lost.

“What the sci­en­tists say is that we’re over­shoot­ing it every now and again. But the 1.5, re­mem­ber, is an av­er­age over time. So it has not been lost for­ev­er,” she said.

How­ev­er, she warned that bring­ing tem­per­a­tures back with­in the tar­get would be­come in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult the longer coun­tries de­layed re­duc­ing emis­sions.

“The longer we take to do that, the more dif­fi­cult it is to bring it back,” she said, adding that ma­jor emit­ting coun­tries had to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and make the nec­es­sary changes to their economies and lifestyles.

Be­yond emis­sions re­duc­tions, Bar­nett iden­ti­fied cli­mate fi­nanc­ing as an­oth­er ma­jor pri­or­i­ty for the Caribbean at COP31.

She said the re­gion need­ed de­vel­oped coun­tries to ho­n­our pre­vi­ous fi­nan­cial pledges while mak­ing fund­ing more ac­ces­si­ble to vul­ner­a­ble na­tions.

Bar­nett said the process of prepar­ing projects and qual­i­fy­ing for fi­nanc­ing re­mained com­pli­cat­ed, while the pro­por­tion of fund­ing pro­vid­ed as grants was of­ten too small com­pared with loans.

She al­so ex­pressed cau­tious op­ti­mism about dis­cus­sions sur­round­ing im­me­di­ate dis­as­ter re­cov­ery fi­nanc­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly the ex­pan­sion of the Caribbean Cat­a­stro­phe Risk In­sur­ance Fa­cil­i­ty (CCRIF) and the in­clu­sion of dis­as­ter claus­es in loan agree­ments.

Such pro­vi­sions could al­low coun­tries to sus­pend debt re­pay­ments fol­low­ing a hur­ri­cane or oth­er ma­jor dis­as­ter, free­ing up re­sources to pro­vide food and shel­ter, re­store homes and re­spond to ur­gent hu­man­i­tar­i­an needs.

How­ev­er, she said in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and pri­vate sec­tor lenders would have to move be­yond dis­cus­sions and for­mal­ly in­cor­po­rate these arrange­ments in­to their fi­nanc­ing struc­tures.

Bar­nett dis­tin­guished be­tween im­me­di­ate dis­as­ter re­cov­ery and longer-term in­vest­ments in in­fra­struc­ture, in­clud­ing roads, bridges and hos­pi­tals dam­aged by hur­ri­canes.

Re­flect­ing on the first week of COP31, she de­scribed the at­mos­phere as hope­ful, with con­sid­er­able ac­tiv­i­ty and con­struc­tive dis­cus­sions, but said the re­al test would be whether those con­ver­sa­tions trans­lat­ed in­to ac­tion.

She al­so urged Caribbean cit­i­zens to pay clos­er at­ten­tion to the ne­go­ti­a­tions, stress­ing that cli­mate change was not sim­ply an is­sue for gov­ern­ments or in­ter­na­tion­al pol­i­cy­mak­ers.

“We have to lis­ten to our sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies, the peo­ple who tell us what is like­ly to hap­pen, be­cause it will af­fect our lives,” she said.

“For me, this is about the next gen­er­a­tion. This is about the kind of world that our chil­dren, your chil­dren, grand­chil­dren even­tu­al­ly will live in.”

Bar­nett said the de­ci­sions be­ing made at COP31 would have con­se­quences far be­yond the present gen­er­a­tion, mak­ing it es­sen­tial for Caribbean peo­ple to re­main in­formed and en­gaged.