CARICOM demands concrete action on Climate Change fight at Americas Summit
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Kaieteur News – With the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), including Guyana particularly susceptible to the risks associated with Climate Change, the regional bloc of countries has used the platform of the IX Summit of the Americas to press for concrete action on the part of the developed world to tackle the impacts of the environmental phenomenon.
The clarion call was emphasised and advanced at the platform by CARICOM Chairman, Prime Minister of Belize, John Briceno, during the plenary sessions held earlier this week at the confab being hosted in Los Angeles, USA.
CARICOM Chair, Belizean Prime Minister John Bricenco
Pressing CARICOM’s case, the regional leader sought to impress that Caribbean economies are in a precarious place because of our inherent vulnerabilities to external shocks, including exposure to climate change and devastating storms. But the pandemic and now the effects because of the war in Ukraine have further battered our economies.
According to Prime Minister Bricenco, notwithstanding the six percent recovery in global growth in 2021, CARICOM Member States, except for Guyana, recorded an average growth rate of one percent.
He said too, “a few Member States experienced even further GDP (Gross Domestic Product) losses ranging from one percent to -6.3 percent.”
Member States, he said, were expected to record a stronger growth performance in 2022 but “the effects of the war, rising inflation, rising oil costs and further supply chain disruptions have led the IMF (International Monetary Fund) to downgrade growth projection for the region” and that “we cannot continue on this path.”
With this in mind, the Belizean leader told world leaders, including US President Joseph Biden and his Guyanese counterpart, Irfaan Ali, “this regression was not of our making, we are ready to join our partners in the Americas to design measures that will provide urgent and targeted responses to arrest this decline.”
We have come to Los Angeles to agree on specific deliverables on climate change, debt relief, access to concessionary financing, energy and food security. With firm commitments we can move forward.”
He was adamant, now is the time for actions that are focused on achieving a sustainable, resilient and equitable future for the hemisphere.
“Action must include equitable access to vaccines and treatment for COVID-19 to end the acute phase of the pandemic and a strengthened and sustainably financed global health architecture.”
Action, he said, must include the Paris 2030 delivery agenda and as such, “we demand firm plans from developed countries for emissions reduction targets in line with the 1.5 degree centigrade Paris temperature goal, a plan to scale up climate finance beyond the floor of the US100 billion dollars annually through to 2025, and doubling of adaptation finance.”
Additionally, Prime Minister Bricenco implored, “action must include finalisation and use of a multidimensional vulnerability index to determine access to grants and concessional development finance, so that countries like ours can affordably finance our recovery and build resiliently. Action must include debt relief.”
Action, he insists, must include a coordinated, multilateral response to the deepening food and energy crises including financing and technology transfer to support the acceleration to renewable energy.
The Belizean Prime Minister was adamant, the world is a tipping point, “the Americas and the world face existential threats, as leaders, we are called to make consequential choices which will irreversibly shape our collective future.”
To this end, he questioned, “will we continue to postpone the urgent action needed to reduce emissions, finance adaptation and mitigation and protect the most vulnerable countries and populations from the impact of climate change” and suggested “we cannot.”
“Will we implement practical and innovative measures to alleviate the crushing debt crisis? We must; will we ensure that the socioeconomic devastation including the sharp rise in poverty, hunger and education loss caused by the pandemic do not result in a lost decade for the Americas with more irregular migration and insecurity? We can, will we allow ourselves to be divided by failed cold war paradigms or will we meet the profound challenges united and with common purpose? We will.”
According to Prime Minister Bricenco, “these are the questions which underpin the theme of this Ninth Summit of the Americas: “Building a Sustainable, Resilient, and Equitable Future.” How we respond to these questions will design our destiny.”
In making his appeal, he noted that “as we seek solutions we know that money is not the problem. For example, in less than three months two countries in this hemisphere committed over $55 billion to Ukraine. The question is: how much will be pledged to finance the ambitious agendas we agree at this Summit?”
