COP26 fell short of CARICOM’s expectations

The United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference (COP26), held last month in Glasgow, failed to deliver on what the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) expected from the meeting, Secretary-General Dr Carla Barnett said.

Engaging the regional media on December 14 in her first Press Briefing, she said the Region was deeply involved in the run-up to and in the negotiations at COP26. However, much work needs to be done to advocate for its concerns at two main levels.

“The first is to advocate for actions to reduce CO2 emissions to a level that will keep global temperature rise below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels,” Dr Barnett said.

Concerns were heightened that Small Island Developing States and low-lying coastal Developing States (SIDS) are particularly vulnerable to climate change when the recent IPCC Report sounded an alarm that this decade is the final opportunity to keep 1.5°C within reach.

Going into Glasgow, the Community sounded another alarm in the CARICOM Declaration titled: 1.5°C: Ambition to Defend the Most Vulnerable that “even at 1.5°C SIDS will continue to experience the worsening of slow onset events and extreme events including more intense storms.”

The document listed the impacts the Region is already facing as a result of climate change. They include heavy or continuous rainfall events, ocean acidification, increased marine heatwaves, rising sea levels together with storm surges resulting in coastal inundation, saltwater intrusion into aquifers and shoreline retreat, as well as the continued overall decline in rainfall, increased aridity, and more severe agricultural and ecological droughts.

“CARICOM countries need to be understood as bearing the heavier burden of climate change,” Dr Barnett told the regional media, adding that the implication means “we must also be seeing a commensurate access to financing that flows as a result of climate change.”

The reality is, she said, the pledges for funding support from the international community have not been forthcoming to meet the “increasing costs” associated with loss and damage, mitigation, and adaption.

“We are caught in a situation where we don’t cause climate change, we bear the burden of climate change and we don’t have access to funds that ought to be provided to help us to respond to the impact on our countries,” Dr Barnett stated.

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