Remarks by Executive Director of the CCCCC, Dr. Colin Young on the launch of the climate change-themed Caribbean Media Awards (CMA) funded by the EU through the Intra- ACP EU-GCCA+ Project on Wednesday, February 1, 2023, at the Caribbean Media Centre (CMC studios), Harbour Industrial Estate, Barbados

Mr. Luca Trinchieri, Team Leader, Green Deal Partnership, and other members of EU delegation to Barbados, OECS, and CARICOM/CARIFORUM;

Mr. Anthony Greene, Member of the Board of Directors of the CBU and CEO of Starcom Network; other Members of the Board of Directors of the CBU,

Mrs Sonia Gill, Secretary General of the CBU,

Officials from the Government of Barbados,

Staff members of the 5Cs,

Members of the media,

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome.  

It is my distinct pleasure to deliver these welcome remarks, on behalf of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, known as the CCCCCs, at the launch of the climate change-themed media awards that will shine a bright light on the best climate change media content creations for 2022.  

Climate change is an existential threat to the Caribbean. We are at the frontlines of a worsening climate crisis that is already impacting lives and livelihoods across the Caribbean. According to the Emergency Events Database, the Caribbean has been impacted by 70 named storms, affecting 19 Caribbean countries between 1980 and 2019, causing loss of lives and economic damage and losses of over USD 145 billion, with over USD 100B in damages happening over the last decade alone, primarily from category 5 hurricanes. Our housing, utility, agriculture, tourism, and transport sectors are repeatedly impacted. Forecast models predict an even more drastic increase in economic losses and damages up to USD 26 billion per year by 2030 and 53 billion/per year by 2100, if the world fails to keep global temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius. As hurricanes get stronger and more deadly, as droughts get longer and more devastating, as floods become more frequent and destructive, and as sea levels get higher and oceans get warmer and harmful to our coral reefs,  it is easy to understand why we say that climate change is an existential threat to our way of life. The Caribbean is one of the most vulnerable areas in the world to the effects of climate change. The adverse impacts of climate change are the single greatest impediment to the Region’s sustainable development aspirations. It also contributes significantly to the Region’s debt levels; over 50% of the Bahamas’ debt is attributed to hurricanes over the last 7 years, while in Dominica over 80% of its debt is related directly to climate-related events. Belize suffers losses equivalent to 7% of GDP annually from climate-related disasters.

Despite these startling realities, however, the level of awareness of climate change and its impacts and the level of attribution of observed impacts to climate change, by our citizens of the region, remain low. The existential threat of climate change that is espoused by our political leaders in every international fora is not being echoed by our citizens in our cities, communities, and villages across the Region. Climate change was ranked 4^th by respondents who participated in KAP survey across 5 Caribbean countries in 2021, behind inequality, access to affordable healthcare, droughts and insufficient water when they were asked what was the most serious problem their country was facing. This is despite the fact that over 88% of respondents indicated that they are experiencing hotter days/nights and 81% noticing a change in the dry and wet seasons and 70% reported experiencing droughts and water shortage, for example.

The same KAP survey indicated that 60% of respondents wanted more climate change information and that their preferred sources of such information are primarily the internet, mass media, and radio talk shows.  Accordingly, this campaign is being informed by the results of the survey. We are pursuing a multi-media approach to build awareness that will embrace local stakeholders, traditional media, and internet-based platforms in an effort to reach a diverse audience.

It is clear that the media is not only an important stakeholder in the climate change discourse but that it also has a duty and responsibility to ensure that it does its part in educating our citizens about one of the most important and existential issues of our time. The media has always informed and educated and shaped public opinion on a range of issues affecting our people. The same must be true with climate change. However, for this to be effective, we must ensure that our media personnel understand climate change and its complexities so that the issues can be adequately analyzed and can be accurately and easily reported and communicated to our citizens. Climate scientists and technicians often find it challenging to communicate climate change in easy-to-understand language; through employing various modalities, however, the media can put together powerful stories to communicate even the most complicated climate change issue.

At the CCCCCs, we recognize that analyzing and reporting climate change-related issues accurately and in an engaging manner to a diverse audience is sometimes challenging, especially over a plethora of multi-media platforms. As such, we realize that a deeper and more coordinated approach between Caribbean technocrats, climate practitioners, scientists, and the media is warranted if we are to succeed in improving the awareness of our citizens to climate change and its effects and most importantly, influence their behaviours to mitigate or adapt to the worsening impacts of climate change.

In this regard, the CCCCC, in 2022, signed a master service agreement with the Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU) to cement a strategic relationship that includes providing a range of media services that are critical to assisting us with driving the climate change agenda and build a better alliance with Caribbean media.

As part of the EU-GCCA+ Project being implemented by the CCCCCs in 16 CARIFORUM States, various target groups are expected to participate in climate actions as part of the Time is Running Out climate literacy campaign which we hope will engender an attitude of environmental consciousness to reduce the observed climate apathy and increase climate literacy among our citizens.  The media plays an indispensable role in helping us in achieving these outcomes.

In this context, the EU-GCCA+ Time is Running Out Climate Literacy Campaign, hopes to execute an active programme with the media over the next year of the Project; this programme will include providing (i) media sensitization sessions, (ii) press tours, (iii) supporting media delegations to international climate change conferences, (iv) media invitations to cover key events and activities, and (iv) launching media awards for covering climate-related content.

While we acknowledge that covering climate change is not easy and that some topics may not be seen as “sexy”, ‘sensational”  or even “newsworthy,” by some, we recognize that many reporters, traditional media houses and social media content creators continue to develop an interest in covering climate-related stories. Increasingly, they are leveraging strategic opportunities to build news content and knowledge products that are shared with their audiences and followers across a range of platforms.  We want to encourage this interest and incentivize this behaviour. Accordingly, we have joined forces with the CBU to celebrate the best in climate-related news reporting and other climate change media-related content as part of their annual Caribbean Media Awards (CMA).

The CBU is a valued partner in this initiative; they will manage the climate change-themed media awards given their long-standing experience honouring journalists, reporters, and other media practitioners over the last 30 years. With these climate change-themed awards, we hope to see, in the future, boosted coverage on climate change that is rich, evidence-based, innovative, effective, and impactful.  According to the CBU, the media awards and approach that will be utilized have “helped spur content creators at media houses across the region,  to research, produce and publish content suitable for such designated CMA categories throughout the year, in order to qualify for entry to the competition.”

Today’s launch is the official call for entries into the media awards competition; we have 12 categories in 4 different media platforms: radio, TV, digital, and print. We hope that media personnel throughout the Caribbean will consider competing for these prestigious awards.  

Through these media awards,  we are hoping to achieve the following outcomes:

1. More evidence-based news reporting on climate change;
2. Better engagement with the region’s journalists, reporters and other media operatives to ramp up sustained news coverage on climate change-related issue;
3. Increased visibility for the 5Cs as the CARICOM-mandated institution to lead and coordinate the Caribbean’s response to climate change, while also showcasing our partner, European Union, who is making this initiative possible;
4. Increase the awareness of our citizens to climate change and its effects to improve climate resilience across the Caribbean.

This call is open to all reporters/journalists/news camera crews, media production companies, and social media influencers who are citizens of CARIFORUM Member States  – this includes, all CARICOM states plus Cuba, and the Dominican Republic.

Our first media sensitization session starts tomorrow in Barbados. This will be the first in a series that we will be holding across more countries in CARIFORUM this year, as part of our commitment to building the capacity of journalists, reporters, and communications personnel working in climate-sensitive sectors. We encourage media personnel in Barbados to join us at these workshops when we roll them out in the respective Member States.

Tomorrow’s sensitization session will expose media personnel to broad topics on climate change and will include varied types of instruction, fact-sharing, and practical exercises.  Recognising that reporting climate science concepts to non-science audiences with accuracy can be challenging, as discussed above, the programme will be designed to feature both the global and local contexts to:

1. Equip participants  with first-hand experiences, information, and tools to champion climate change stories and improve the frequency and accuracy of climate change reporting;
2. Amplify how human interest angles elaborate the emotional side to convey stronger stories;
3. Demonstrate how to break down scientific facts into practical climate solutions for varied audiences, and
4. Provide examples of how climate-related stories can be framed to help guide local actions and improve public knowledge.

We are excited about this partnership with the CBU and we are even more excited to see the climate change-related content that will be created from across the Region. The CCCCC stands ready to assist media personnel to better understand climate change and its complexities; our experts stand ready to assist you in any way possible to ensure that the media becomes a powerful champion in promoting climate change awareness across the region.

Once again, a warm welcome to all of you.