Earth Today | Innovation necessary for climate readiness

THE INTRODUCTION of innovation together with a relook at alternative livelihoods have emerged among a suite of recommendations to realise a Caribbean more prepared for the impacts of a changing climate.

This is reflected in the book chapter written by a group of noted local scientists in the book called The Caribbean Blue Economy and edited by Peter Clegg, Robin Mahon, Patrick McConney, and Hazel A. Oxenford.

In it, researchers Professor Michael Taylor, Professor Mona Webber, Dr Tannecia Stephenson, and Felicia Whyte note the need for innovation and alternative livelihoods to help the region come out ahead of climate change impacts.

“In anticipation of the challenges to food and livelihoods of coastal communities, attempts will have to be made to facilitate, where necessary, the diversification of livelihoods, the development of new sustainable industries and the reduction of dependency on threatened ecosystems,” the scientists wrote in the chapter titled ‘Implications of climate change for Blue Economies in the Wider Caribbean’.

Beyond that, they said that responding to the climate challenge calls for “new tools, technology, training, systems and procedures, legal and financial instruments, and methods of integrated planning that account not only for human communities and infrastructure, but also ecosystem responses and value”.

“For example, improved safety-at-sea training and associated equipment will be required, as well as early warning systems which are currently not prominent in small-scale fisheries across the Caribbean,” they note.

This comes against the background of eye-popping, heart-rate-increasing projections for climate change impacts – from extreme weather events that impact rainfall patterns while presenting a threat to life and property to the continued warming of the planet and the associated increase in sea levels and sea surface temperatures.

The researchers paint the picture this way: “Developing countries, including those constituting the Wider Caribbean, will be among the most disadvantaged under future global warming. This is due to multiple interrelated climate risks they already face from climatic variations and extreme weather events, which are further magnified at higher levels of future warming.”

“Especially for the small island developing states of the Wider Caribbean basin, the economic cost of climate change is projected to significantly increase in the future as a result of greater damage to critical infrastructure which support human settlements and the high cost of the damages in comparison to their small economies. The region’s strong climate vulnerability arises in part from the strong linkages between Caribbean economies and way of life and the ocean, that is, the resources it encompasses and supports,” they add.

Already, they say, the Caribbean has seen significant changes.

“The climate of the Caribbean has already changed in significant ways and is projected to continue changing through the end of the current century due to further global warming,” write Taylor and the others.

“The overall picture is of a Caribbean already characterised by increases in storm intensity, drought risk, ocean temperatures, acidity, sea levels and wave heights. The future climate will likely see more intense storms, even higher sea levels, smaller wave heights, and warmer, more acidic oceans,” the researchers add.