Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

With the Caribbean now in the hur­ri­cane sea­son, Cari­com chair­man Roo­sevelt Sker­rit ex­pressed con­cern about a lack of firm de­ci­sions on cli­mate change, He ad­mit­ted that he some­time feels like giv­ing up and not at­tend­ing COP cli­mate change con­fer­ences.

Sker­rit spoke at a flag rais­ing cer­e­mo­ny mark­ing Cari­com’s 50th an­niver­sary which took place in heavy rain yes­ter­day at the Ch­aguara­mas Con­ven­tion Cen­tre.

He said peo­ple are liv­ing in a world which is more dif­fi­cult that it was 50 or even 20 years ago and Cari­com has to be unit­ed be­cause too many in­jus­tices are be­ing in­flict­ed out to it as a Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty. He cit­ed cli­mate change and “kick­ing down the buck­et of firm de­ci­sions” to ad­dress Cari­com’s con­cerns.

“Some­times we feel like giv­ing up and not go­ing to any of the COP (Con­fer­ence of the Par­ties) con­fer­ences but we must nev­er re­lent on our fight against in­jus­tice,” he said

Not­ing the trop­i­cal wave af­fect­ing the East­ern Caribbean, Sker­rit added: “Al­ways a dis­com­fort­ing and un­nerv­ing time for all of us and this is why it is so crit­i­cal that ac­tion be tak­en where cli­mate change is con­cerned. We have no choice in this mat­ter and we have to re­turn to the com­mit­ments that were made to us.

“Every time there’s a COP con­fer­ence there’s a new of­fer­ing on the ta­ble. I do not be­lieve we need new of­fer­ings. We need to go back to the orig­i­nal of­fer­ing and en­sure that of­fer­ing is ac­tu­alised and re­alised by all of us. So we’re op­ti­mistic that who have ears will hear and who have hands will act and let us act to­geth­er to re­solve this ex­is­ten­tial threat to all of us.”

Sker­rit al­so spoke about ac­tions over which Cari­com has no con­trol but which have se­ri­ous neg­a­tive im­pli­ca­tions for the re­gion.

Com­ment­ing on the is­sue of cor­re­spon­dent bank­ing and de­risk­ing, he said: “I don’t be­lieve the av­er­age Caribbean na­tion­al un­der­stands the im­pli­ca­tions of this on the whole in­di­vid­ual house­hold and cir­cum­stance.

“I want to say to the Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty, this is not a gov­ern­ment fight, this must be our fight. Every one of us must play our part be­cause this pos­es an ex­is­ten­tial threat to our very sur­vival and abil­i­ty to trade with the rest of the world.”

Not­ing that the in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial ar­chi­tec­ture is skewed against the re­gion, Sker­rit added: “I’m hap­py we’re push­ing out with the Bridgetown ini­tia­tive where we’ve ar­tic­u­lat­ed clear views of what the prob­lem is and the so­lu­tions.”

He said when Cari­com spoke to those who have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to make those de­ci­sions, they gave the im­pres­sion that it was im­pos­si­ble.

“As far as I un­der­stand it, out­side of the Ten Com­mand­ments, we can change any­thing we wish to change in this world,” he said.

Sker­rit said he didn’t sub­scribe to the no­tion that young peo­ple are the lead­ers of to­mor­row.

“Our young peo­ple are lead­ers to­day and to­mor­row and we have to en­sure they play the part to­day,” he said.