It is alarming that in 2026, questions are still being raised in the Caribbean about whether we need to pay critical attention to the scientifically confirmed climate crisis.
There is an important requirement not to lose sight of the urgency with which the matter is to be addressed, especially since some narratives are being skewed by compliant political agendas, brittle science, and the conscientious work of propagandists.
The role of disinformation is a central theme of today’s dispatch because the climate crisis remains among the more significant challenges of our time, especially when it comes to the framing of informed public policy responses.
The glee with which some observers highlight recent failures in regional media is telling. It reveals awareness of an opportunistic vacuum - a space where professional journalism, which offers the sternest challenge to mis- and disinformation, is being undermined.
What ought to be reasoned analysis of a serious, already-evident challenge to countries such as ours, now resides alongside an easily identifiable buffet of anti-science and disinformation coincidental with belief systems of malignant convenience.
If we needed to, we could perfectly describe the menu. Name the issue, and you will find the same concoction of common ingredients, a recipe slavishly mimicked by our local sous chefs of disinformation
There is unfortunate evidence, though, that such a cocktail has found accommodating official palates. Since when have national commitments to a “just transition” toward a low-carbon environment been of needlessly onerous, questionable value? Yet, we have been detecting both passive and active political resistance in our region.
Countries like ours have, for years, found common cause in pressing for greater recognition of our unique circumstances. Right here, in the Caribbean in 1994, the epochal Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in Barbados determined a framework for advancing our peculiar requirements.
And, yes, the process has not always benefited from a perfect ride. We have been jostled and bullied and fallen prey to empty promises and commitments. But this does not prescribe abstinence or absence.
Back to media. There have been quite independent efforts over the years to ensure the news agenda finds space for changing climate conditions – whether or not people believe in its anthropogenic triggers on which the vast majority of real scientists agree.
For, beyond increasingly marginal contentions, changed objective circumstances require informed journalistic attention when it comes to associated economic, socio-cultural and political impacts.
Count on the fisherfolk to tell you of changing ocean trends, the farmers reliant on irrigation, the young people short on economic opportunity as they move from one population centre to the next.
This is not about panicking and shouting “Climate change!” at every unusual shower or futile fishing trip. Such hysteria is as unhelpful as shouting “We go dead!” over the microphone in a crowded Carnival fete.
This is a matter for rational observation and better capturing of and reporting on credible science and accompanying policy responses, some of which we are entitled to critically interrogate.
For instance, I perfectly understand the energy producers, such as Guyana and soon Suriname, with newfound abundant wealth being interested in advancing prior sluggish development through fortuitously abundant financial resources and saying: “Let’s slow down. Wait a moment here.”
The imperative of a “just transition” is certainly not only a matter for people, communities and sectors, but is also a concern inherent in relations between states – small and large, weak and powerful.
We may also say that our Nationally Determined Contributions in all this—once they are known and understood by all—should not overly overwhelm the socio-economic demands of new national circumstances and an increasingly more challenging global interface.
Today, Wednesday, Caribbean journalists assemble in a hybrid setting through Climate Analytics and the Media Institute of the Caribbean to explore some of these issues.
Addressing ignorance, disinformation and mischief will hopefully form part of the discussions.
The challenge goes beyond disappearing scientific doubt and dissent and has a direct bearing on broader agendas related to power, control and toxic recipes. Enlightened self-interest by media also constitutes part of the simmering brew.
