Opinion
- Editorial- Commentary
Sir Ronald
Sanders : Caribbean
countries
should be compensated for global warming
The Caribbean is a victim of climate change caused
by larger countries and yet no attempt is made
to compensate the area for the damage being done
to it by the profligate emissions of harmful gases
by larger countries.
The end of the hurricane season has always been
a time of relief for the islands of the region,
but it has become even more so over the last decade
as storms have worsened both in their intensity
and frequency.
All Caribbean countries, including mainland territories
such as Belize and Guyana, are already witnessing
coastal flooding and erosion, saline intrusion
into fresh water, changes in rainfall patterns
causing droughts or floods and enormous damage
to infrastructure.
Yet, it is well known that small island states
around the world, account for only one per cent
of the global emissions that are linked by many
scientists and scholarly research to climate change.
Even when other small developing countries are
added to the island territories, the greenhouse
emissions do not increase by much.
The
US remains in first place with 30 per cent of
all the human-produced greenhouse emissions
to date and about 20 per cent of the current yearly
totals even though it makes up only five per cent
of the world’s population.
China is very close behind the US. On a measurement
of head of population its emissions are much lower
than the US but its rapidly growing economic activity
suggest that by 2025 it will surpass the US.
In a real sense, the countries of the Caribbean
are paying for the abuse of other countries.
Tourism is a significant contributor to the economic
development of many Caribbean countries bringing
in some US$20 billion in revenues and employing
about a million people.
Small Caribbean countries, such as Antigua and
Barbuda and Grenada, which are highly dependent
on tourism, know well that major hurricanes can
destroy years of development overnight and it takes
years and considerable financial investment to
recover.
The private sector in the region is particularly
challenged by the effects of climate change.
Hurricanes inevitably affect hotels. Located on
the coastal areas, as many of them are, they are
often the first casualties of storms.
Getting them functioning again is not only a matter
of finding the money to rebuild the physical infrastructure,
it is also the financial burden of convincing the
market place through advertising and public relations,
that the country and the property are open and
ready for business.
With insurance companies raising premiums with
each hurricane, and commercial banks charging high
rates of interest on loans, plus the high cost
of importing material, the cost of doing business
in the Caribbean becomes increasingly more prohibitive
in the face of climate change.
This observation is true too for non-tourism business.
Heavy rains and flooding affect agricultural production
in the small islands and in the mainland territories.
In Guyana, for instance, heavy and unseasonable
rainfall threatens the sugar and rice industries
and makes dry-weather roads from the interior dangerous
if not impassable. In turn, this affects the costs
of transportation in critical areas such as forestry.
What all this adds up to is that the region becomes
less attractive as an area for doing business.
The question arises: what can be done about it?
The experts call for programmes to be agreed at
a global level that would compel individual states,
particularly the major users of fossil fuels, to
cut down on the emissions of harmful gases. Attempts
to achieve this have been lukewarm at best.
Despite the efforts of persons such as the former
US vice president Al Gore, with his book and film,
An Inconvenient Truth, the majority of people in
the industrialised world have not been moved to
make changes to their lifestyles, and many large
corporations have shown marked reluctance to implement
measures that move away from the use of fossil
fuels since doing so would erode their profits.
One salvation for small island states and mainland
territories with low-lying coastlands is that climate
change is beginning to affect industrialised countries
as well. They too have low-lying areas that are
threatened by the sea and by rivers.
In this connection, there have been efforts by
some countries to curb their harmful practices.
The State of California in the US has introduced
legislation to curb emissions, and China is increasingly
using solar power to provide hot water for domestic
use.
So far in the Caribbean, the focus has been on
measures to mitigate the impact of climate change.
These measures have been viewed in the context
of what individual countries could do to limit
the damage caused by disasters and how best they
might try to recover from them. But, no Caribbean
country has sought to introduce into trading arrangements
the matter of compensation for the damage being
done to the region by the emissions from the industrialised
countries.
Yet, if the Caribbean is so low an emitter of
harmful carbons but is a major victim of the high
emissions of many of its trading partners, surely
a formula could be worked out by which the Caribbean
trades its low use for meaningful development assistance.
No doubt, the trading partners such as the European
Union, who at 14 per cent, are the third largest
emitter of harmful gases, would argue that such
a discussion should take place in an international
forum such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
or the Kyoto Protocol.
And, undoubtedly, if the Caribbean were to try
to introduce the notion of compensation for its
low emissions and damage caused by high emitters,
there would be considerable resistance.
But every journey starts with a first step.
And, the Caribbean could take the first step by
introducing the concept in the African, Caribbean
and Pacific group and exploring whether, together,
they might advance the idea in the international
institutions such as the UN and the WTO.
Sir
Ronald Sanders is a business executive and former
Caribbean diplomat( ronaldsanders29@hotmail.com).
Petroleumworld does not
necessarily share
these views.
This
commentary was originally published by Trinidad Express, Saturday,
March 8th 2008. Petroleumworld
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