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​Kalain Ho­sein

Me­te­o­rol­o­gist/Re­porter

kalain.ho­sein@guardian.co.tt

As the in­ter­na­tion­al cli­mate con­fer­ence, COP28, be­gins on Thurs­day, there are some spe­cif­ic ac­tions the Caribbean Nat­ur­al Re­sources In­sti­tute (CA­NARI) are look­ing to see ac­com­plished as the or­gan­i­sa­tion launch­es its Caribbean Cli­mate Jus­tice Al­liance.

CA­NARI is a re­gion­al tech­ni­cal non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion which has been work­ing across the Caribbean for more than 30 years in pro­mot­ing and fa­cil­i­tat­ing stake­hold­er en­gage­ment in the stew­ard­ship of nat­ur­al re­sources in the re­gion.

The in­sti­tute’s Se­nior Tech­ni­cal Of­fi­cer Dr Ain­ka Grander­son said, “Since 2020, we’ve been work­ing on cli­mate jus­tice be­cause we re­alise that there are a lot of voic­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly from those on the ground, so think about us small scale farm­ers and fish­er­folk, even per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, and oth­er mar­gin­alised groups that we’re not re­al­ly hear­ing from in this wider con­ver­sa­tion around this cli­mate chal­lenge.”

Cli­mate Jus­tice are new buzz­words in the cli­mate space, as those most af­fect­ed rarely have a seat at the ne­go­ti­at­ing ta­ble, much less a voice in the mat­ter.

Grander­son ex­plained the con­cept as, “When we hear the word jus­tice, we think about peo­ple get­ting what they de­serve. We think about know­ing or de­fend­ing your rights, we al­so even think about restor­ing bal­ance.”

Grander­son added, “Where things are un­fair or un­just, we think about how do we cor­rect this? If we ap­ply that to cli­mate change, you know, we can re­al­ly think about the fact that the im­pacts from the changes in weath­er that we’re see­ing are not dis­trib­uted or ex­pe­ri­enced equal­ly. When we think about how we then ad­dress that in­equal­i­ty in the process, that’s what cli­mate jus­tice is about.”

In CA­NARI’s Caribbean Cli­mate Jus­tice and Re­silience Agen­da, the or­gan­i­sa­tion out­lined eight pri­or­i­ty needs and ac­tions by 2030 for vul­ner­a­ble groups and wider civ­il so­ci­ety across the Caribbean, par­tic­u­lar­ly com­ing out of dis­cus­sions at COP28.

At the crux of the agen­da is en­sur­ing that those on the front­lines of cli­mate change im­pacts are heard, while curb­ing emis­sions and cli­mate fi­nanc­ing.

“We want to see that pol­i­cy mak­ers and those that are mak­ing the de­ci­sions are ac­tu­al­ly tak­ing in­to ac­count the needs of those on the front­lines who we are we re­al­ly try­ing to help as part of the cli­mate ac­tions that we’re tak­ing and the re­spons­es that we’re tak­ing to this chal­lenge that we’re fac­ing. If there’s flood­ing, if there’s ris­ing sea lev­els, this hot spell that we re­cent­ly ex­pe­ri­enced in the last few months – are the ben­e­fits ac­tu­al­ly go­ing to those that are most af­fect­ed, or those are the most vul­ner­a­ble? That’s what we want to see,” Grander­son said.

At COP28, there are calls for in­creased am­bi­tion to re­duce emis­sions which pro­duce green­house gas­es that have dan­ger­ous­ly warmed the plan­et.

While CA­NARI echoes those sen­ti­ments, Grander­son added, “Be­cause the im­pacts from cli­mate change are re­al­ly caus­ing a lot of prob­lems im­pact­ing peo­ple’s liveli­hoods, their in­come, well-be­ing, health and all these things, we re­al­ly want to see more fo­cus on adapt­ing to the im­pacts of cli­mate change in terms of fund­ing and ca­pac­i­ty build­ing for groups on the ground so that they can ac­tu­al­ly de­sign and im­ple­ment so­lu­tions that help them.”

CA­NARI and sev­er­al oth­er mem­bers of the of the al­liance will be on the ground in Dubai, par­tic­i­pat­ing in COP28 events which runs from to­day to De­cem­ber 12

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CA­NARI’s Caribbean Cli­mate Jus­tice Al­liance Pri­or­i­ties:

Curb­ing emis­sions to lim­it glob­al tem­per­a­ture in­crease to 1.5˚ C.

Scal­ing up lo­cal­ly led so­lu­tions for adap­ta­tion and loss and dam­age.

Im­prov­ing ac­cess to and de­liv­ery of cli­mate fi­nance for front­line com­mu­ni­ties, small and mi­cro en­ter­pris­es, and civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions as part of a ‘whole of so­ci­ety’ ap­proach.

Scal­ing up just, na­ture-based so­lu­tions for re­silience.

Sup­port­ing a just tran­si­tion for pro-poor, in­clu­sive, sus­tain­able, and re­silient de­vel­op­ment.

Pro­mot­ing gen­der eq­ui­table and so­cial­ly in­clu­sive ap­proach­es to cli­mate ac­tion.

Pro­mot­ing youth and in­ter­gen­er­a­tional eq­ui­ty as core to the cli­mate re­sponse.

In­te­grat­ing a rights-based and earth-cen­tred ap­proach in ad­dress­ing all these pri­or­i­ties and en­sur­ing cli­mate jus­tice.

This sto­ry was pub­lished with the sup­port of Cli­mate Track­er through the COP28 Cli­mate Jus­tice Re­port­ing Fel­low­ship.