Paradise Lost: Is the Caribbean Ready for Climate Change?
In 2017, climate change’s chickens came home to roost. The hurricane season ranked as the costliest ever for the United States, with damages from hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria coming in at more than $200 billion. These initial figures are likely to swell further as the reconstruction process unfolds. Scientists are now increasingly certain that such extreme events can be tied directly to the effects of climate change.
Further south, more frequent tropical storms could spell disaster for the countries of the Caribbean. Months after Hurricane Maria, large swaths of the population in Puerto Rico are still cut off from power, and many remain without regular access to water. But Puerto Rico’s predicament is only one of the many extreme examples of climate change impacts in the region.
When Hurricane Ivan swept through Grenada in 2004, it destroyed 90 percent of the country’s buildings, and — like in Puerto Rico — left large segments of the population without access to power and sanitation for weeks. The storm caused damages equivalent to more than twice Grenada’s GDP, and is estimated to have thrown back its development by ten years.
Increasingly forceful storm events are hardly the only problem facing the Caribbean, however. As most of the countries in the region are island states, they are particularly vulnerable to the effects of long-term sea level rise and ocean acidification. With tourism accounting for more than 30 percent of some Caribbean economies, this could have disastrous consequences.
Bit by bit, preserving the Caribbean’s pristine beaches is becoming an increasingly arduous task. Some are set to disappear entirely. Cities, often located along the coast, will have to expend significant resources to guard against encroaching shorelines, which could diminish their attractiveness to visitors. Moreover, as more carbon dioxide enters the oceans, the Caribbean Sea is set to acidify, leading to bleached coral reefs. Much of the onetime Caribbean underwater paradise has already disappeared.
Whereas Caribbean countries will have to fight off seawater, freshwater resources are increasingly coming under pressure. Studies suggest that droughts will occur more often and last longer. A number of Caribbean countries already lack sufficient water resources, and often depend on seasonally variable surface water. In Grenada, the government has therefore focused on increasing rainwater harvesting and converting its agricultural production to drip irrigation.
Most of the countries in the Caribbean are part of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). The alliance was instrumental in pushing for a more ambitious goal at the Paris Climate Conference in 2015. As a result of pressure by these island states, the Paris Agreement includes language that suggests the international community will try to further limit temperature increases to 1.5 degree Celsius.
But even at 1.5 degrees, the Caribbean will be in for a reckoning. And while many countries in the region have long since started planning for climate change effects, the deck appears stacked against them.
Many Caribbean countries are highly indebted. This makes it difficult for them to raise the necessary funds to fight off the current and future effects of climate change. For this reason, many of the countries in the region are hoping for financial help from international sources like the Green Climate Fund (GCF).
Some, like the Dominican Republic and the small island state Dominica, have attracted significant funds. But in general, money is tight. The GCF is supposed to channel half of its funds towards projects that focus on climate change adaptation. In practice, however, it is finding it easier to finance ventures that offer a clear financial return, such as solar power panels. A handful of other schemes like the UN’s Adaptation Fund offer only relatively small amounts of finance.
Because the countries in the region are overwhelmingly small, they often lack the administrative capacity to manage the climate finance process. Instead, they have to rely on donor countries’ development agencies or UN programs to handle this task. Lack of size is also problematic from another perspective: The projects that do get approval tend to be small in size as well, which can prevent impacts from materializing at scale.
Increasingly, Caribbean countries are therefore turning towards integrating climate change into all areas of public policy. Cuba recently adopted a 100-year climate change plan, which aims to cover everything from housing to agriculture and coastal zone management. Jamaica has a Ministry of Water, Land, Environment and Climate Change. In Grenada, the government is working with hotels to develop strategies towards more sustainable water use.
The countries in the region are also banding together. The regional Caribbean Community, which serves as a forum for countries to collaborate on a number of common policies, has developed a strategic plan that prominently features climate change concerns. Other initiatives like the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility provide a platform to mitigate some of the climate risk by spreading it across its members.
Time will tell if such measures will be enough to stem the tide. If more funds aren’t forthcoming from international sources, countries in the Caribbean may have to get creative to find the necessary additional resources. To the ire of many tax authorities in rich countries, some Caribbean states are already selling passports to whomever can pay a large fee. Another idea could be to issue climate adaptation bonds specifically targeted towards diaspora populations, since a significant amount of people born in the Caribbean now live in the US or the UK.
In Puerto Rico, murders have reportedly surged in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Meanwhile, its citizens will soon have to prepare for the next storm.
