Notes for policymakers - International Climate Change Conference for the Caribbean 2017

Climate change poses a serious threat to sustainable development, impacting negatively on livelihoods, ecosystems, infrastructure, health and the productive sectors. For the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) of the Caribbean sub-region, the threat is even more severe due to the biophysical and socio-economic characteristics of these countries which make them especially vulnerable to these impacts. This is a result of the geographic location of many of these States in the hurricane belt, and the concentrations of their populations and economic infrastructure in coastal zones. Additionally, the sub-region is dependent on a narrow range of economic activities, including agriculture and tourism, which are intimately linked to the environment, making them highly susceptible to external shocks (ECLAC, 2010a). Thus, climate change is of direct relevance to economic development planning in these countries.

Recent scientific analysis (IPCC 2014) shows that the Caribbean region climate is shifting to a new climate regime, dominated by increased variability and erratic and more extreme events. For example, the recent hurricanes Irma and Maria fit this pattern, as at no point in the historical records, dating back to the late 1800s, have two category five storms made landfall in the small Caribbean island chain of the eastern Antilles in a single year. As a consequence of this climatic shift in the region, estimates of the economic cost of climate change to Caribbean economies are useful in developing adaptation and mitigation strategies within the context of national and sub-regional development policies and plans. Apart from obvious costs, such as those related to the replacement value of infrastructure due to increased intensity of tropical cyclones, real costs include productivity loss, potential relocation of persons living near coastlines, and increased resources for dealing with frequent flooding. Indeed, the range of anticipated impacts on key economic sectors in the Caribbean will have implications for overall quality of life in the Caribbean sub-region, and more so among poor and vulnerable groups.

Given such climate and socio-economic context, and under the framework of the Global Climate Change Alliance Plus (GCCA+) flagship initiative of the European Union, the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) and the European Commission Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DG-DEVCO) jointly organised an international conference titled “Integrating Climate Variability and Change information into Adaptation and Mitigation actions in the Caribbean Region” in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago from October 9th to 12th, 2017. With the support of the EU GCCA+, the Caribbean Development Bank, UNDP Japan Caribbean Climate Change Partnership (UNDP-JCCCP), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and CCCCC coordinated this joint international climate change conference for the Caribbean. This conference addressed the role of climate information (from global, regional and local models) into shaping and implementing climate policy and programmes in the Caribbean region. The various sessions addressed the crucial nexus of science-policy for building the required resilience capacity and programmes in the Caribbean region, based on available climate information, highlighting how theories translate into research and how these research findings are and can be used to formulate actions and policies which are critical to building resilience in the Caribbean and can be transferable to other regions.

This conference addressed the current global climate change landscape, providing specifically an overview of the expected challenges in the Caribbean region: higher temperatures, lower rates of precipitation, rising sea surface temperatures, more intense extreme events and sea level rise.  The conference aimed at evaluating the role of climate information in shaping climate policies and programmes in the Caribbean region, and at discussing the integration of climate variability and change risks into national and regional development planning. The main expected results were fostering the interaction and knowledge sharing amongst regional scientists and wider community of policy makers and development partners.

The conference was organised under three thematic areas: (i) Current and Future Climate Scenarios in the Caribbean Region, (ii) Climate Change impacts on key development sectors and socio-economic dynamics; and (iii) Climate Change Policy and Programme Management.

The EC DG-DEVCO is responsible for the management of the EU GCCA+ flagship initiative