Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Civ­il so­ci­ety groups in the Caribbean are be­ing urged to strength­en their pres­ence in re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al dis­cus­sions on the tran­si­tion away from fos­sil fu­els.

Car­oli­na Sanchez, spokesper­son for the Fos­sil-Free Wider Caribbean Net­work, said the goal of a re­gion­al gath­er­ing in Saint Lu­cia ear­li­er this month was to bring more or­gan­i­sa­tions in­to a grow­ing coali­tion push­ing for a shift in glob­al en­er­gy pol­i­cy.

The meet­ing took place ahead of the first in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence fo­cused on tran­si­tion­ing away from fos­sil fu­els, sched­uled for April in San­ta Mar­ta, Colom­bia.

Sanchez said one of the main ob­jec­tives is to in­crease par­tic­i­pa­tion from the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean in re­gion­al ad­vo­ca­cy ef­forts.

“For us in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, it is re­al­ly im­por­tant to un­der­stand the dy­nam­ics of the in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence and oth­er spaces like this,” she said. “Our small coun­tries tend to not have a lot of voice in those spaces.”

Sanchez, who is from Cos­ta Ri­ca, said small­er states can still in­flu­ence glob­al dis­cus­sions if they work to­geth­er.

“I firm­ly be­lieve that small coun­tries can have a big voice if they choose to,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to Sanchez, the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Caribbean states in glob­al cli­mate and en­er­gy ne­go­ti­a­tions is crit­i­cal be­cause the re­gion is among the ar­eas most af­fect­ed by cli­mate change.

She said many Caribbean coun­tries have con­tributed lit­tle to glob­al green­house gas emis­sions but face sig­nif­i­cant im­pacts from cli­mate-re­lat­ed dis­as­ters such as hur­ri­canes.

“We have con­tributed the least to the is­sue of glob­al warm­ing, yet we are suf­fer­ing some of the strongest con­se­quences in the Caribbean,” she said.

Sanchez said co­or­di­nat­ed ac­tion among small is­land and coastal states could help in­crease pres­sure on larg­er fos­sil fu­el pro­duc­ers.

Al­though many Caribbean economies are small mar­kets in­di­vid­u­al­ly, she not­ed that the re­gion col­lec­tive­ly rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant voice in in­ter­na­tion­al dis­cus­sions.

Sanchez said the up­com­ing con­fer­ence in Colom­bia could pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty for stronger civ­il so­ci­ety par­tic­i­pa­tion, not­ing that the coun­try has a tra­di­tion of in­clud­ing non-gov­ern­ment or­gan­i­sa­tions in pol­i­cy dis­cus­sions.

How­ev­er, she said Caribbean groups must or­gan­ise to en­sure their voic­es are in­clud­ed.

“That space is not guar­an­teed,” she said. “It means we have to get to­geth­er and put more pres­sure to ac­tu­al­ly have that space and have our voic­es heard.”

Sanchez al­so called for the re­gion to de­vel­op its own ap­proach to en­er­gy tran­si­tion rather than adopt­ing poli­cies de­signed else­where.

She said Caribbean states should shape so­lu­tions that re­flect their eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ties and en­vi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges.

“It’s re­al­ly im­por­tant that we start talk­ing about what that tran­si­tion re­al­ly looks like for us,” Sanchez said. “We should be de­vel­op­ing it in a way that works for the Caribbean.”