Not wanting to be particularly morbid in this season of good cheer, but nevertheless calling your attention to the prediction that, in addition to all the current social, economic and political problems that plague the Carib-bean, the region will soon have to cope with a series of difficulties which will become real because of continuing climatic changes. According to a report of the United Nations Climate Change Conference held earlier this month in Mexico, rising sea levels will smash large parts of the tourism infrastructure and product, will wash away airports and sea terminals, and will cause the loss of massive sums of revenue from the tourism industry.
Further, the experts demonstrated with graphics at the conference that "by 2050, rises in the temperature of ocean surfaces will result in more frequent bleaching of coral reefs, with a negative impact on tourism and fishing." Impacts on the environment apart, climate change is expected to have effects on health, not only through heat waves and waterborne diseases, but also as a result of the expansion of geographical areas conducive to the transmission of vector-borne diseases.
"If no action is taken, increased hurricane damage, loss of tourism revenue, and infrastructure damage are projected to total (US)$22 billion annually by 2050 and (US)$46 billion by 2100," states the report.
The greatest economic losses in absolute terms are being predicted to occur in the Bahamas, Suriname, Guyana and T&T, and this is because areas of many of these countries are below sea level. The sea water, the prediction goes, will rush ashore notwithstanding the sea wall in Guyana and here at Mosquito Creek, to use a local example.
An audio-visual presentation at the conference demonstrated that Jamaica's capital, Kingston, would be flooded and the Norman Manley Airport would be unusable if the sea rise levels reach the predicted two-metre mark. However, there is no secured place for the states of the Eastern Caribbean as the report notes that proportionately, small (smaller, it should be) islands such as Grenada, Antigua/ Barbuda, Dominica and St Lucia will be most seriously impacted.
With regard to the region's forest resources, the UN report states the need for rapid advances in reducing emissions resulting from deforestation and forest degradation in order to reverse the prevailing negative trends and deal successfully with the associated problems. The report concludes on a few basic messages on central issues that will seriously impact the wider Latin America southern hemisphere and the Caribbean.
Message number one: climate change is a global problem and can only be ameliorated through the participation of all countries. Second, while LA and the Caribbean, as a unit, emits far less CO2 per capita compared with the world average, in dollar terms, the LAC is said to compare poorly with even the OECD, the rich industrial states, in terms of emissions based on emissions of CO2 equivalent per US$1 million of GDP.
The comparative figures show that while the region emits 1,152 tonnes of CO2 equivalent for every US$1 million of GDP, that is more than twice the amount, 481 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per US$1 million, emitted by the OECD countries. Significant to also consider are the effects of climate change on the regional economy when compared to population growth. While economic growth, states the report, limps along to feed, house and sustain the population of the region in good health and sanitary conditions, the population base almost doubled, an increase by 85 per cent between 1970 and 2001 from 285 million to 528 million, at the same time that annual economic growth rates slipped sharply from an average 2.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent.
One feature of the growth in population is the emergence of sprawling makeshift cities attempting to cope with the rush from the interior. Almost assuredly, such unplanned urbanisation impacts negatively on agricultural production, crime, family values and overall human development. The report states that countries in the region will require major resources and assistance to reduce their vulnerability and enhance their resilience to the harmful impacts of climate change.But the news here is not good for the developing world.
To compound the predicted financial and environmental impacts, the reality for especially the Caribbean is that the assistance in terms of financial resources, promised by the industrial world here in Port-of-Spain in 2009 and at the Copenhagen Conference, to counter the negative impacts of changing weather patterns is not expected to materialise, states the UN/United Nations Environment Programme report.
Forty years from now, in the first instance, may seem like a long time, and it is a long time for many and an unreachable dateline for large segments of the Carib-bean population; but for generations unborn and for the youth of the region, the time frame is but days away. To think of it in tangible terms, for those who are alive and were alive in 1970, that is how far off 2050 is from today. Long-term planning is not a practised art by Caribbean governments faced with the immediate and pressing problems of the next 24 hours, more so when they are in the throes of seeking to do everything to secure another five-year mandate.
In such circumstances, the political culture is about expediency. Edward Seaga, when he was Prime Minister, once told a young reporter who dared mention a 12-year time frame, that "12 years is a lifetime for a politician," dismissing the concern of the reporter for the short life of a particular trade agreement.
However, the admonition from the UN/UNEP report is for Carib-bean governments, responsible institutions and individuals to start contemplating, understanding and planning for the medium-term future to find ways and means to mediate the deterioration and ameliorate its possible impacts into the future.
If that is not done, then we will wake up one morning and find the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea flowing into our cities, our forests gone, economies collapsed, with the resulting untold human suffering. As intractable as many of our immediate problems may seem, that which is predicted could destroy the civilisation.