Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) min­is­ters of the en­vi­ron­ment and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment Wednes­day said re­gion­al coun­tries have been en­gaged in an ex­ten­sive in­ter­na­tion­al en­vi­ron­ment agen­da which will evolve with key de­ci­sion-mak­ing on bio­di­ver­si­ty, cli­mate change, land degra­da­tion and plas­tics.

“ While the ne­go­ti­at­ing agen­da re­mains chal­leng­ing for our lim­it­ed na­tion­al ca­pac­i­ties, we re­main com­mit­ted giv­en the clear and present dan­ger that in­ac­tion in these spheres pose to the liveli­hoods of cur­rent and fu­ture gen­er­a­tions of cit­i­zens of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty,” the min­is­ters said in a joint state­ment.

The min­is­ters said Caribbean coun­tries are deeply com­mit­ted to the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Glob­al Bio­di­ver­si­ty Frame­work (GBF) as well as mon­i­tor­ing and re­port­ing on its im­ple­men­ta­tion.

They said with re­gards to the on­go­ing Unit­ed Na­tions Bio­di­ver­si­ty Con­fer­ence (COP16) meet­ing in Colom­bia, mem­ber states are com­mit­ted to up­dat­ing and align­ing Na­tion­al Bio­di­ver­si­ty Strate­gies and Ac­tion Plans (NB­SAPS) to the Glob­al Bio­di­ver­si­ty Frame­work, adding “we al­so place pri­or­i­ty on the com­ple­tion of fi­nance strate­gies to ac­cu­rate­ly cost ac­tiv­i­ties but note that these are de­pen­dent on the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of the NB­SAPs.

But they said that CARI­COM re­mains con­cerned about the slow pace of the NB­SAP up­date and align­ment process­es due to chal­lenges en­coun­tered with pro­cure­ment process­es out­side the con­trol of the mem­ber states.

“While mem­ber states ap­pre­ci­ate the sup­port pro­vid­ed, it is crit­i­cal that ad­min­is­tra­tive process­es be ex­pe­dit­ed to en­sure that more valu­able time is not lost,” the min­is­ters said.

They said that in an ef­fort to pro­vide con­struc­tive so­lu­tions, “we be­lieve there is room for CARI­COM re­gion­al In­sti­tu­tions, sen­si­tive to the re­gion­al and na­tion­al ca­pa­bil­i­ties of CARI­COM mem­ber states and ca­pa­ble of pro­vid­ing clear di­rec­tion, guid­ance, and time­ly feed­back to the CBD and the GEF na­tion­al fo­cal points’ or­gan­i­sa­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly those with lim­it­ed man­pow­er, to plan and im­ple­ment the NB­SAP-re­lat­ed projects and be ac­cred­it­ed to the GEF to im­ple­ment projects and pro­grammes.

“Con­sid­er­ing this, we re­quest that the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB) con­sid­er be­ing ac­cred­it­ed to the Glob­al En­vi­ron­ment Fa­cil­i­ty”.

The min­is­ter said they have ob­served that for ef­fec­tive im­ple­men­ta­tion of Glob­al Bio­di­ver­si­ty Goals, there must be clos­er syn­er­gies with oth­er Mul­ti­lat­er­al En­vi­ron­men­tal Agree­ments (MEAs) in­clud­ing the Unit­ed Na­tions Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change (UN­FC­CC), the Unit­ed Na­tions Con­ven­tion to Com­bat De­ser­ti­fi­ca­tion (UNC­CD) and the Basel, Rot­ter­dam, Stock­holm and Mi­na­ma­ta (BRSM) Con­ven­tions.

They ar­gue that the time for de­vel­op­ing ac­tions to ad­vance syn­er­gis­tic im­ple­men­ta­tion is now, es­pe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing lim­it­ed hu­man and fi­nan­cial ca­pac­i­ty for im­ple­men­ta­tion.

“We recog­nise the need to strength­en the re­gion’s ca­pac­i­ty in bio­di­ver­si­ty by, among oth­er things, en­hanc­ing train­ing and lo­cal ex­per­tise; de­vel­op­ing re­search in­fra­struc­ture; and strength­en­ing re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tions ded­i­cat­ed to bio­di­ver­si­ty

“We there­fore wel­come the nom­i­na­tion of the CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at to serve as a host sub re­gion­al Tech­ni­cal and Sci­en­tif­ic Co­op­er­a­tion Cen­tre (TSC) un­der the Con­ven­tion of Bi­o­log­i­cal Di­ver­si­ty to sup­port the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Glob­al Bio­di­ver­si­ty Frame­work and con­tin­ue its ef­forts to sup­port Mem­ber States to el­e­vate the im­por­tance of bio­di­ver­si­ty man­age­ment.”

The min­is­ter said they were call­ing on re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners to sup­port the CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at in pro­gress­ing the work of the TSC.

The min­is­ter said the is­sues of in­va­sive alien species, ma­rine and coastal ecosys­tems, the 30 x 30 tar­get, dig­i­tal se­quence in­for­ma­tion and its link­age to ac­cess and ben­e­fits shar­ing and restor­ing de­grad­ing ecosys­tems, are all shared con­cerns for the re­gion.

“These is­sues are un­der­pinned by the need for in­creased pub­lic aware­ness and strength­en­ing da­ta and in­for­ma­tion sys­tems.

“There are al­so is­sues that speak di­rect­ly to our vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties such as post-dis­as­ter re­cov­ery and the need to re­store crit­i­cal is­land ecosys­tems such as trop­i­cal and man­grove forests, as well as sus­tain­able re­source man­age­ment in ex­trac­tive in­dus­tries such as min­ing and forestry and how these help with the fight against the im­pacts of glob­al cli­mate change,” the min­is­ters added.

They said for these rea­sons, CARI­COM re­mains hope­ful, but re­al­is­tic, re­gard­ing im­ple­men­ta­tion of the GBF.

“ De­spite our in­her­ent vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and fis­cal chal­lenges, we con­tin­ue to be am­bi­tious and in­no­v­a­tive. We look for­ward to work­ing with par­ties, civ­il so­ci­ety and inte”

Re­gard­ing the 29th Con­fer­ence of the Par­ties (COP29) to be held in Azer­bai­jan in No­vem­ber, the re­gion­al min­is­ters said the cli­mate change cri­sis is not abat­ing.

“Our re­gion re­mains in the di­rect path of im­pacts from ex­treme weath­er events to slow on­set events, all of which threat­en our peo­ple, their liveli­hoods, our economies, and our en­vi­ron­ment. Con­tin­ued glob­al in­ac­tion will re­sult in an over­shoot of 1.5 de­grees Cel­sius in this decade.

“The con­se­quences will be dev­as­tat­ing for is­land economies de­pen­dent on agri­cul­ture, fish­ing and tourism as ev­i­denced fol­low­ing the pas­sage of Hur­ri­cane Beryl through our re­gion, and the sig­nif­i­cant im­pacts of ocean acid­i­fi­ca­tion on ma­rine ecosys­tems and ma­rine bio­di­ver­si­ty.”

They said fol­low­ing the out­comes of the First Glob­al Stock­take of the Paris Agree­ment goals, the COP 28 Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE) Con­sen­sus was en­dorsed to put the world on track to achieve the 1.5 de­grees Cel­sius tem­per­a­ture goal and to pro­tect the most vul­ner­a­ble via an en­er­gy tran­si­tion pack­age, a glob­al re­silience frame­work, and the new­ly op­er­a­tionalised loss and dam­age fund.

The min­is­ters said CARI­COM is com­mit­ted to the full im­ple­men­ta­tion of the UAE Con­sen­sus, adding “we ex­pect that the Baku Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence (COP 29) will build on the Con­sen­sus, de­liv­er on the cli­mate fi­nance goal for its im­ple­men­ta­tion, and safe­guard the in­ter­ests of Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS) and Least De­vel­oped Coun­tries (LD­Cs)”.

They said there must be sus­tained ef­forts for the con­ser­va­tion, pro­tec­tion and restora­tion of forests, na­ture and car­bon mar­kets and oth­er fi­nanc­ing mech­a­nism are cru­cial to re­sourc­ing these ef­forts.

”CARI­COM em­pha­sis­es that im­ple­men­ta­tion of the UAE Con­sen­sus is ur­gent. The tran­si­tion away from fos­sil fu­els is fun­da­men­tal to keep­ing glob­al warm­ing be­low 1.5 de­grees Cel­sius. “We en­cour­age all Par­ties to the Paris Agree­ment to con­tribute to this glob­al ef­fort by im­ple­ment­ing cur­rent na­tion­al­ly de­ter­mined con­tri­bu­tions (ND­Cs) and elab­o­rat­ing their next ND­Cs due in Feb­ru­ary 2025.

“We call par­tic­u­lar­ly on the Group of 20, who are re­spon­si­ble for 80 per­cent of glob­al emis­sions, to bring for­ward 1.5 aligned ND­Cs as soon as pos­si­ble. Our fu­ture is de­pen­dent on your ac­tion and am­bi­tion,” the CARI­COM min­is­ters of en­vi­ron­ment and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment said on their joint state­ment.