Forum urges climate justice approach for Caribbean

The Caribbean Nat­ur­al Re­sources In­sti­tute con­vened its re­gion­al Part­ners Fo­rum on cli­mate jus­tice on Jan­u­ary 19 and 20 in Bar­ba­dos.

The Fo­rum brought to­geth­er more than 85 par­tic­i­pants, in­clud­ing mem­bers of the Caribbean Cli­mate Jus­tice Al­liance, front­line com­mu­ni­ties, cli­mate de­fend­ers and ad­vo­cates. Lead­ers of re­gion­al tech­ni­cal agen­cies, ex­perts in cli­mate fi­nance and law, me­dia rep­re­sen­ta­tives, de­vel­op­ment part­ners and phil­an­thropic or­gan­i­sa­tions al­so at­tend­ed.

Dis­cus­sions fo­cused on strate­gies to strength­en col­lab­o­ra­tion to ad­dress cli­mate change as a hu­man rights is­sue in the Caribbean. Ses­sions ex­am­ined lived ex­pe­ri­ences of cli­mate im­pacts at the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el, re­cent glob­al ad­vi­so­ry opin­ions on cli­mate jus­tice, im­pli­ca­tions for the Caribbean le­gal con­text and ap­proach­es to cli­mate fi­nance.

In open­ing re­marks, Chair Cle­tus Springer said cli­mate change must be ad­dressed through eq­ui­ty and fair­ness, in­clud­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for harm, dis­tri­b­u­tion of ben­e­fits and im­pacts on hu­man rights. He said cli­mate jus­tice must ad­dress pow­er im­bal­ances and mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion.

Unit­ed Na­tions Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Cli­mate Change and Hu­man Rights Pro­fes­sor Elisa Morg­era said the cli­mate cri­sis af­fects eco­nom­ic, so­cial, civ­il and po­lit­i­cal rights. She warned that re­spons­es that ig­nore hu­man rights may leave vul­ner­a­ble groups be­hind.

Cli­mate de­fend­er Chris­tine Samwa­roo of the Bread­fruit Col­lec­tive in Guyana said cli­mate jus­tice must cen­tre com­mu­ni­ties and pro­tect mar­gin­alised peo­ple.

Case stud­ies high­light­ed im­pacts on In­dige­nous peo­ple, youth, women, gen­der-di­verse groups and lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing ef­fects on cul­ture, food sys­tems, liveli­hoods and par­tic­i­pa­tion in gov­er­nance.

Vice Chair Ca­r­ole Ex­cell, En­vi­ron­men­tal De­fend­ers Rap­por­teur for the Es­cazú Agree­ment, said cli­mate jus­tice re­quires vis­i­bil­i­ty and pro­tec­tion for com­mu­ni­ty voic­es.

Pres­i­dent Win­ston An­der­son of the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice ad­dressed le­gal av­enues for cli­mate jus­tice, not­ing the role of re­cent ad­vi­so­ry opin­ions from glob­al courts.

Dis­cus­sions on cli­mate fi­nance called for re­form of fund­ing sys­tems and part­ner­ships with civ­il so­ci­ety and com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions.