Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Amid crip­pling heat grip­ping the Caribbean, Cli­mate An­a­lyt­ics Caribbean has raised con­cerns that there is lim­it­ed da­ta and re­search re­gard­ing the costs as­so­ci­at­ed with loss and dam­age from heat stress and heat­waves across the re­gion.

The non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion point­ed to el­e­vat­ed tem­per­a­tures, hu­mid­i­ty, and more fre­quent heat­waves, en­dan­ger­ing vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties and height­en­ing the risk of de­plet­ed agri­cul­tur­al yield, drought, coral bleach­ing, and more detri­men­tal im­pacts to our economies and ecosys­tems.

In a bid to gath­er da­ta on the im­pacts a chang­ing cli­mate is hav­ing on the Caribbean, Cli­mate An­a­lyt­ics Caribbean has launched its first Caribbean Loss and Dam­age di­a­logue and re­search project, Is­LanD Ad­vance­ment.

“Loss and dam­age is a ma­jor top­ic in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, and it is im­per­a­tive that Caribbean voic­es are at the cen­tre of the dis­cus­sion to en­sure de­ci­sions are ap­pro­pri­ate and ben­e­fi­cial for our coun­tries which are on the front lines of cli­mate change,” said Ruean­na Haynes, Di­rec­tor, Cli­mate An­a­lyt­ics Caribbean. “There is al­so an ur­gent need for a re­search agen­da on loss and dam­age in the Caribbean to en­able sci­ence-based pol­i­cy and de­ci­sion mak­ing on loss and dam­age in the re­gion.”

On the back of COP27, small is­land de­vel­op­ing states will lead the call in Dubai this year for world lead­ers to op­er­a­tionalise a Loss and Dam­age Fund to as­sist com­mu­ni­ties which are most vul­ner­a­ble to cli­mate change im­pacts.

The project aims to ben­e­fit the re­gion by con­duct­ing ex­ten­sive re­search and en­hanced da­ta col­lec­tion and analy­sis on the ex­tent of is­lands’ loss­es and dam­ages, and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of ex­ist­ing re­sponse gaps. "This could po­ten­tial­ly im­prove our coun­tries’ ac­cess to loss and dam­age fi­nance," a state­ment on Wednes­day said.

The Is­LanD Ad­vance­ment project will be car­ried out in 14 CARI­COM states: An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Ba­hamas, Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, Guyana, Haiti, Ja­maica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lu­cia, Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Suri­name, and Trinidad and To­ba­go.

It in­cludes three com­po­nents:

1) Caribbean Re­search Agen­da on Loss and Dam­age.

2) Caribbean Di­a­logue on Loss and Dam­age, which will bring to­geth­er gov­ern­ment, civ­il so­ci­ety, acad­e­mia, NGOs and the pri­vate sec­tor to share rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion and knowl­edge and dis­cuss ex­pe­ri­ences with loss and dam­age at the lo­cal, com­mu­ni­ty and na­tion­al lev­els as well as op­tions to ad­dress loss and dam­age in the Caribbean.

3) Ed­u­ca­tion and Pub­lic En­gage­ment on loss and dam­age.

Is­LanD Ad­vance­ment, which is be­ing fund­ed by the Open So­ci­ety Foun­da­tions with a bud­get of USD 300,000, will run for two years un­til June 2025.