Members of the Media,

Good morning! Thank you for joining us this morning. We certainly appreciate your presence here. The ROLE of the press in educating and disseminating timely and relevant information on climate change to our citizens is indispensable.

The Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, known as the 5Cs, was established by the Heads of CARICOM Governments in 2002 with a mandate to coordinate the Caribbean’s response to the climate change. Since 2005, when the 5Cs became operational in Belize, as the Host country, its has been delivering on this mandate in two important ways:

1. It Executes a suite of programmes, in partnership with other regional and international institutions, that have improved climate data collection and analysis that allows better prediction of the Caribbean’s climate in the future as well as improve capacity to make evidence-based decision-making;
2. It mobilizes climate finance, on behalf of Member States, to fund climate adaptation and mitigation investments. To date, the 5Cs has mobilized over USD 260 M for climate investments across the Region.

The Centre is recognized by United Nations Institute for Training and Research as a Centre of Excellence and by the UNFCCC, other UN agencies, CARICOM Secretariat, and other international and regional agencies as the focal point for climate change in the Caribbean.

With this mandate, the 5Cs continues to play an important role in the climate change dialogue, particularly in coordinating CARICOM’s negotiating priorities leading up to the various Conference of Parties (COP), under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC). The 5Cs, long before 2015, adopted the 1.5 to Stay Alive campaign that would, through the work of Alliance of Small Island Developing States (AOSIS), become a rallying cry of the Caribbean and other Small Islands Development States (SIDS). Through the brilliant work of our CARICOM negotiators, as part of AOSIS, the historic Paris Agreement reflected the 1.5 temperature goal in the text…it reads “…limit global warming to well below 2oC, preferably to 1.5oC, compared to pre-industrial levels.” The 5Cs has also supported research that contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 1.5 special report on the implications of 1.5°C of global warming.

However, 5 years after Paris, the world has not delivered on the Promise of Paris. Rather, we are going in the wrong direction. Global Greenhouse gas emissions are increasing rather than decreasing and temperatures are increasing.

• 5 years later, the National Determined Contributions (NDCs), those pledges and targets set by nations to reduce emissions to keep temperature goal within reach, have the world on a trajectory
• to reach 3 degrees by 2100 and, as we just read in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, to reach the 1.5oC within 20 years, even under in the lowest emission scenario.
• 5 years later, developed countries have not delivered the USD 100 Billion/year they promised in Paris; rather, access to finance has become more challenging and the bureaucracy to access have become even more difficult to navigate – slowing even more, the trickle of climate finance and thus the adaptation of climate change.
• 5 years later and we are still not yet seeing the type of climate ambition from the biggest emitters – those in the G7 and G20 – that is necessary to meet the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement – actions speak louder than words – and right now, bold climate actions and commitments are not at the scale they need to be, nor do they reflect the urgency that is required to keep the 1.5oC within reach.
• 5 years later, the Caribbean is even more vulnerable to climate change than in 2015. Since 1950, 324 natural disasters struck the Caribbean, killing over 250K people and affected more than 24 million. Between 1970 and 2020, 91.5% of Caribbean disasters are climate change related – hurricanes, floods, droughts, for example, with combined losses and damage from hurricanes only, of over USD 137 billion. Between 2010 and 2020, the Region has been impacted by over 150 disasters that directly impacted over 22 million people. Today, the Caribbean, on average, experiences 4 significant events (> those that causes losses of 20% GDP or more per/year); annually, the Region suffers losses the equivalent to 2-3% of its GDP per year – for many of our countries, the annual losses from climate related hazards exceed the GDP growth.

In its Revised Regional Framework for Achieving Development Resilient to Climate Change (2019-2029), the 5Cs highlighted the significant economic costs of climate impacts estimating an average annual cost of some USD350-550 million per year due to tropical cyclones alone. Agricultural losses for countries that are dependent on that sector could reach 50 percent of GDP. The 5Cs, concluded that “without resilience building through effective adaptation, damages from hurricanes, losses from declines in tourism and damages to infrastructure due to sea level rise are projected to total USD 22 billion annually by 2050 and USD 46 billion annually by 2100, representing 10% and 22% of the Caribbean GDP respectively.” These numbers are hardly surprising when one considers that almost 60% of the Caribbean GDP is derived from sectors such as tourism, agriculture and other natural resource-based industries that are very vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

This is the context in which our leaders continue to make the point that climate change, for the Caribbean, is an existential threat. The Caribbean, in the words of Prime Minister of Dominica, is on the frontline of the war on climate change – a war that we are on pace to lose and losing badly – unless the world significantly ramps up its climate ambition. The science of this has never been clearer! With the Sixth Assessment report, it is now pellucidly and unequivocally clear!

The IPCC Sixth Assessment report is perhaps the most important and consequential report ever published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its 33-year history. The findings are sobering and dire, especially for us in the Caribbean and for all SIDS. The findings confirm what we have been experiencing and telling the world.

• Year after year, we see the number and severity of climate hazards increasing; year after year, we see and experience more frequent and severe droughts;
• year after year, we experience more frequent and intense heavy downpours;
• year after year, we bear witness to increasing coastal erosion and the losses of our beaches and critical infrastructure;
• year after year, we feel the hotter days and night-time temperatures and experience debilitating heatwaves;
• year after year, we hear of hurricanes seasons that are “above average” and that are packed with category 4 and 5 storms.

The IPCC’s full Sixth Assessment Report is over 1300 pages long; its summary for policy makers is almost 40 pages. It is written by over 250 scientists from over 66 countries who utilized over 14,000 peer-reviewed publications. In other words, the report represents the most up-to-date physical understanding of the climate system and climate change ever produced. It uses the best available science and tools…and while we are still digesting the technical report, it is very clear that the findings, as mentioned earlier, are damning, dire and sobering for the Region. So far, however, we would like to highlight 6 key findings from the report and discuss, during the Q&A, the implications for the Caribbean:

Key Findings and Implications for Caribbean

1. The World on track to reach the 1.5oC temperature threshold by 2040 with devastating implications for Caribbean States and for the 1.5 to Stay Alive rallying cry of the Caribbean.

• i. Increase temperatures equal hotter days and nights and more intense heat waves
• ii. Increasing heavy precipitation events and flooding
• iii. Increasing number and severity of droughts

2. Climate Change impacts are global but some Regions, including the Caribbean, will experience an increasing and co-occurring number of extreme weather-related disasters (e.g. droughts, floods, storms, coastal erosion, coral bleaching).

• Not only will climate-related hazards increase and become more severe, but they will co-occur, stressing government ability to adequately respond

3. Our oceans are rising, becoming hotter, and more acidic with devastating impacts on key sectors, such as tourism, fishing and livelihoods.

• i. Implications for tourism, increase coral bleaching with consequences for fishing, coastal erosion, coastal flooding and salt water intrusion – all with significant socio-economic impacts on livelihoods and our economy.
• ii. Stronger hurricanes – an increase in the intensity of hurricanes

4. There is NO TIME for delay. Global Action is required NOW to keep the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement within reach. The world must agree to:

• i. Reduce global emissions by 45% by 2030
• ii. Commit to reach net zero by 2050; if we fail to meet 45% by 2030, the projections are that 1.5 temperature will be reached in the next 20 years.

· How can this be achieved?

• i. Scale-up of Renewable energy
• ii. Transition to E-transport
• iii. Halt deforestation globally
• iv. Stop constructing burning coal/fossil fuels and decommissioning of existing plants
• v. Scale of Technology to remove CO² from atmosphere

5. Some observed changes are already locked in and are irreversible over period of hundreds to millennia (sea level rise, acidification, melting of glaciers, loss of biodiversity). As such, Caribbean countries will continue to be impacted by sea level rise and coral bleaching etc. CARICOM must ramp up adaptation measures

6. Human actions are “unequivocally” responsible for rapidly changing climate resulting in increasing and intensifying climate-related hazards. While this recognition is an important one scientifically, knowing the cause of climate change does not, in and of itself, reduce the vulnerability of the Region to the effects of climate change. Nevertheless, the recognition is critical, in that, it demonstrates that humans also can make a change, if only we have the political will.

What does the Report mean for COP26? It should spark an even greater sense of URGENCY. COP26 occurs at a time of unprecedented multi- related crises and a rapidly closing window of opportunity for an effective global response. If we don’t act now, and act in accordance with cutting emissions in line with the science, we will reach 1.5oC in 2030-2040. 2020-2030 is the last chance to set the world on track to 1.5°C. In this decade, we need to:

• reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.
• scale up the transformation of financial systems to move from billions to trillions in support of low emissions climate resilient development pathways.
• scale up innovation, increase institutional and human capacity and technology across multiple sectors.
• fully and effectively implement the Paris Agreement.

All of these actions will need to happen in spite of and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, despite the acknowledgement by developed countries that we can use this crisis caused by the pandemic to Build Back Better and catalyze the transition that is needed to aggressively tackle climate change, CO² emissions are on track for their second biggest increase in history. Thus, the promised COVID 19 recovery investments in low carbon development is not occurring at the scale nor speed required. Developing countries will require no less than 3 trillion US Dollars to implement commitments under the Paris Agreement. However, the developed countries have only committed to deliver 100 billion US Dollars per annum by 2020, a target and deadline that they have already missed. Moreover, they have cut back assistance to developing countries during the pandemic and have failed to deliver on vaccines at the scale needed to help developing countries recover. While they have underfunded climate action, especially adaptation, they have issued a US$189 billion bailout to coal, oil and gas industries during the pandemic alone.

COP26 is the last-best chance of this decade to deliver on the ambition needed to keep the goals of the Paris Agreement within reach. CARICOM leaders have set out three COP26 headline outcomes for ambition. These include:

Members of the Media, I won’t address the specific numbers presented under the 6 scenarios, as those can be easily found in the Report; rather, I hope to be able to share with you the additive and cumulative impact of climate change, for the Region, based on the report and why we continue to maintain that climate change is an existential crisis.

Thank you …I look forward to the ensuing discussion.