Countries in Central America Join Forces to Boost Climate Change Education in the Region
In the face of extreme weather conditions that continue to ravage the region, member states of the Central American Integration System, SICA, have launched a five-year action plan on climate change learning, training and awareness-raising, pooling their resources to strengthen social resilience to climate change, to boost food security and livelihoods in the region.
By Sara Tchaparian // 20th April 2017 // Climate Change Education// Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
Ministers of the eight SICA countries — El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panamá, Honduras, Costa Rica, Belize and the Dominican Republic — have designed a regional action plan to target climate change learning and knowledge sharing initiatives for all sectors of the population, both young and old, flagging the critical need to promote common policies in this area.
The SICA 2017–2022 action plan on climate change learning is the first of its kind, guiding the implementation of actions at a regional level to bring much-needed knowledge and skills to Central America over the next few years. The region intends to become a world leader in empowering local populations to take up climate change mitigation and adaptation actions through learning.
Speaking at a recent meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Central American Commission for Environment and Development (CCAD) in San Jose, Minister of Environment and Energy in Costa Rica, Edgar Gutiérrez Espeleta, highlighted the importance of investing in people as key actors in addressing the challenges and opportunities of global warming. “The key solution to climate change,” he explained, “involves the entire population being aware of climate change and being aware of their responsibility to play a role in mitigation and adaptation processes. The role that we have as ministers, as leaders of the environmental sector in our countries, is precisely to facilitate this knowledge.”
Climate change learning is not a new concept for Central America. In fact, the 2017–2022 action plan builds largely on existing experience and capacities, particularly on the Dominican Republic’s success in implementing their national climate change learning strategy with the support of the One UN Climate Change Learning Partnership, UN CC:Learn, over the past few years.
The new action plan is a product of the SICA region’s climate change strategy which was approved by the heads of state of Central America and the Dominican Republic in 2010, and affirms the harmonisation of public funds and international climate financing so that these can be channelled towards key areas of concern in the region.
“The key solution to climate change involves the entire population being aware of climate change and being aware of their responsibility to play a role in mitigation and adaptation processes.”
In a part of the world which is overwhelmed by the impacts of extreme climate conditions, and where a threat of rising temperatures presents an increasing disaster risk to already vulnerable populations in Central America, the 2017–2022 action plan on climate change learning provides a ray of hope. The region is renowned for its smooth-flavoured Arabica coffee, turquoise seas and banana exports, but worsening climatological conditions have weakened key sectors of its economy in recent years, with record droughts, excessive rains and severe flooding jeopardising agricultural production, and bringing about a food crisis alert that has sparked international attention.
“The increase in temperature has brought about shocking effects,” says El Salvador’s Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Lina Dolores Pohl. “With the coffee production, for example, the beans that are usually affected by more traditional diseases, or by coffee rust, are the ones that are grown at low or medium elevation, but now the high elevation beans are also being affected, and this is coffee that is usually very protected by the altitude.”
Elaborating on the variable weather conditions in the region, Minister Pohl goes on to explain, “The most critical impacts are from the droughts that we have been seeing in the region in the last 5 years. In El Salvador, in particular, last year we had the lowest precipitation level in our historical record, and this is what we are beginning to witness as a region.”
Three priority initiatives of the regional action plan are already underway, including the organisation of a series of ‘Youth Climate Dialogues’ (a live video platform enabling young people to exchange their perspectives on climate change), the making of a film documenting global warming in the region and the vulnerability of SICA countries, and the design of a web platform for climate change knowledge exchange and communication among multiple stakeholders in the region. A recent workshop in Santo Domingo on climate change finance resulted in clear consensus among the ministries of education and environment who agreed on financing options and priority actions, kick-starting the regional implementation of the action plan with renewed enthusiasm.
Highlighting the region’s commitment to climate change learning as a key investment, Felix Wing, Secretary General of the Ministry of Environment of Panama, explains the need for a comprehensive approach, “Not only do we need to emphasize this issue in school educational programmes and in universities,” he explains “but we also need to build capacities at the public institutional level and in the private sector, and it is important that people across all levels of the public and private sector understand that investing in climate change is an investment, and not an expense.”
The move towards active cooperation on climate change in the Central American region is seen as a prime achievement, where cultures and languages are not always the same, and where one of the SICA member states is not a signatory of the UNFCCC Paris Agreement. The launch of the action plan has been welcomed by UN CC:Learn Ambassador, Daniel Abreu, who praised the achievement of the countries involved. “The Action Plan on Climate Change Learning for the SICA Region is the result of an intense and dynamic process of preparation, consultation and input from all countries involved, and we believe that this process will represent a collaboration hallmark for the Central American region and other regions with climate vulnerability conditions.”
Financial support for the implementation of the 2017–2022 action plan will come from the SICA countries themselves, with additional funding provided by Switzerland through the UN CC:Learn programme. A UN CC:Learn support office has been established in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) to oversee the regional coordination of the implementation processes.
UN CC:Learn contributes to the implementation of Article 6 of the UNFCCC on training, education and public awareness-raising, and the 2012–2020 Doha Work Programme, supporting countries to design and implement systematic, recurrent and results-oriented climate change learning. Funding for UN CC:Learn is provided by the Swiss Government and UN partners, and the Secretariat is hosted by the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).
