Caribbean warns of regional climate change dangers

| 03/10/2012

sea-level-rise.jpg(Caribbean Journal): Grenada Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dessima Williams and Barbados Foreign Minister Sen. Maxine McClean urged the global body to pay attention to the effects of climate change on the region. “Inaction or inadequate action is inexcusable and morally indefensible, given the level of the scientific evidence before us, and the technical and financial tools at our disposal to effect the necessary change,” McClean said Monday in New York.  McClean said there was “no greater threat” to the survival and viability of Barbados and other small island states than “potentially catastrophic” climate change.

“Barbados welcomes the decision taken in Durban to launch negotiations on a new legally binding agreement that would take effect after 2020,” she said. “However, for us, a post-2020 agreement is meaningless if ambitious actions are not taken now to reduce global emissions and provide finance and technology to vulnerable developing countries.”

Grenada’s Williams urged UN member states to move toward finalizing a new binding climate treaty by 2015. “Without a legally binding climate regime to uphold environmental integrity, Caribbean and other small island states could lose the opportunity for achieving sustainability soon, and some could even disappear,” she said. “We see the upcoming COP 18 in Doha, Qatar as an opportunity to move decisively away from this scenario.”

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  1. Anonymous says:

    _Climate_ and _change_ are synonymous.  Its the freaking climate, its _supposed_ to change.  We have milleniums of evidence of this.

     

  2. Anonymous says:

    In the picture it looks like the sea is rising. I don't see any truck around or any cement walls either. Surely these people are trying to figure out how to create higher ground right? Is there anyone with commonsense out there can figure out how to get higher ground on a sandy beach? 

  3. Anonymous says:

    don't worry!..we have mark scotland…………zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

  4. Eric the fish says:

    Now do you understand why covering the island in concrete and driving a v8 truck is a bad move?

  5. NeoSurvivor says:

    "financial tools at our disposal to effect the necessary change."   mmm hmmm.   Surely they aren't talking about the fraud of the carbon credits, right?  

     

    Don't get me wrong — there's no doubt in my mind that everything that mankind touches gets soiled, and that we as a species always outlive our resources.    I just question whether AGM is factual, or more correctly a planetary cycle, as occurs with the OTHER planets in our solar system.  

     

    If it IS a cycle (not sure, just postulating here)…….. what ……. ummm…… *cough*  financial tools should be utilised, and who is the recipient/bearer of those tools?  

     

    If Al Gore is involved this time around, I will join lockstep when his carbon footprint is less than ten times my own.  

  6. Anonymous says:

    good luck with getting useful input from the cayman islands!!!

  7. Whodatis says:

    Complete and utter global tax revenue seeking-developing nation crippling-science manipulating-media spun-absolute bullsh!t.

    It saddens me to see my people being sucked into this concocted pile of garbage that is "global warming". (And I say that in full knowledge of the fact that my country is the one most affected my tropical storms and hurricanes on the planet.)

    Who do they speak for and who are they trying to impress?

    Surely not I.

    * The greatest and most severe form of corruption today is that of selfish (or ignorant) desire for political rank and esteem … within a fundamentally corrupt system no less.

    • Anonymous says:

      keep drinking the oil industry kool aid……zzzzzzzzzzz

      • Whodatis says:

        Will do – and you get started on budgeting for those CO2 taxes and fees on every single facet of your existence.

        Global taxation of a made-up and imaginary crisis … gotta love this western world!

        Good work if you can get it though …

    • peter milburn says:

      I have totally dis-agree with you on this one Whodatis sorry.But we can still be friends right?

      • Whodatis says:

        Of course we can Peter!

        After all, we tend to stand eye to eye on most other issues … you know, the 'real' problems in this world.

        (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

        Be good.

        🙂