IT IS AN undeniable fact that climate change has a real effect on the environment and a disproportionate effect on small island developing states (SIDS).
The Caribbean, being one of the smallest contributors to the global carbon footprint – producing a measly three per cent of the globe’s greenhouse gases – feels the effects the most. With extreme weather patterns such as tropical storms and hurricanes decimating entire islands and flooding and droughts destroying entire crops, climate change is one of the greatest threats to food security in the region and the world.
The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN), in its ongoing mission to eradicate hunger especially in developing states, has begun implementing the Resilient Caribbean Initiative, sponsored by the Mexican-Based FAO. From 2018-2020 it focused on assisting countries in actions to facilitate access to climate financing for agricultural projects.
Because of restrictions and measures put in place to combat covid19 the Mexican Government, Caricom and the FAO reformulated the project to promote actions that contribute to reducing the impact of covid19 on households, livelihoods, food availability, food trade, markets and supply chains, but it maintained its mandate to assist countries in accessing climate financing as a means to combat food insecurity.
This is why one of the key goals for the FAO’s latest two-day workshop, hosted by the Resilient Caribbean Initiative, was increasing the technical capacity of Caricom governments to formulate effective project proposals to the Green Climate Fund and Global Environment Facility as well as supporting implementation of approved projects.
But locally assuring food security in the region goes well beyond climate change. Land tenure, infrastructure, and accessibility have also affected farmers' ability to secure food.
Region must adapt to climate change
Speakers at the Resilient Caribbean Initiative workshop on Tuesday highlighted the need for the region to adapt to the changing climate as temperatures rise and weather patterns change.
Environmental management and sustainable development professional Sasha Jattansingh highlighted evidence that suggests that in some areas, the damage done by climate change is already irreversible.
In her presentation she shared findings from the sixth assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) done in 2023.
“What they found was that human-induced global warming of 1.1 degrees Celsius has already caused dangerous and widespread climate impacts,” she said. “The impacts have been on ecosystems, people and infrastructure.
"Future risks will escalate with every increment of warming. Some of the climate impacts are so severe that they cannot be adapted to.”
She listed tropical storms and hurricanes, rising sea levels and coral bleaching as some of the effects of climate change in the region.
Dr Ronald Roopnarine, researcher and academic at the St Augustine Campus of UWI, added that rainfall totals and the distribution of
