2024 could be a particularly challenging year for the Caribbean, not only because of the common challenges associated with economies too fragile to meet the growing needs of the respective countries of the region, but, as well, on account of the ruinous effects of climate change, a phenomenon that manifests itself mostly in devastating natural disasters that wreak havoc on sectors that are directly connected to the physical infrastructure of the region, not least those sectors that are inextricably linked to survival and growth.
A matter of days ago, the Barbados-based Climate Outlook Forum (CariCOF) delivered the grim news that 2024 is likely find the Caribbean battling climate extremes that could retard its efforts to deal with ongoing regional challenges, including food security. The most recent CariCOF Climate Outlook released in Barbados earlier this month, makes clear its concern that the three month period up to July, this year, will witness a return to “normal ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific and a near record warm Tropical North Atlantic Ocean forecast” that will cause the region to enter “an intense heat season with recurrent heat waves”, according to a May 7th Barbados Nation report.
With the region still in the midst of a food security vulnerability to which there has, as yet, been no discernable remedial response, the CariCOF presents Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member countries with challenges that may well require extra-regional support given what, up to this time, has been the slow pace of the substantive rollout of the promised regional food security undertaking. Among the variables that are likely to directly impact the weather in the Caribbean in the period ahead are “frequent incursions of dry, dust-laden Saharan air into the Caribbean,” which, according to CariCOF, if very frequent, will further be characterized by “erratic shower activity… and further buildup of ongoing drought, increasing heat and wildfire potential in May.”
At the other extreme, CariCOF has named Guyana as being among the countries in the region – the other named countries being Belize, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Dominica, Jamaica and St. Vincent – that will be impacted by the anticipated weather conditions, adding that some countries, including Belize and French Guiana, are likely to have to endure ‘short term drought’ up to the end of July. Lacking in capacity to mount an effective response to what in effect is being touted as a multi-faceted climate crisis, it would seem that the region may have little choice but to grin and bear it.
Barbados, reportedly, one of the region’s reported ‘whipping boys’ for its frequent climate calamities, has reportedly been pressing the customarily responsive in the international community to lead the way in pursuit of reforming the international financial architecture to enable developing countries that are recurring victims of the deleterious consequences of climate change to benefit from meaningful access to climate financing in order to render their mitigation undertakings more effective. A battery of Barbadian state functionaries, including Minister in the Minis-try of Finance, Ryan Straughn and Barbados Ambassador to Belgium and the European Union, Simone Rudder, are reported to have attended a recent Organization for Econo-mic Cooperation and Develop-ment (OECD) forum in Paris to make the case for the country being better positioned, financially, to respond to the ravages of climate change.
