What's The Caribbean Response to the Legacy of COP 26 in Glasgow

What's The Caribbean Response to the Legacy of COP 26 in Glasgow

In presenting the outcome document from COP26, Alok Sharma, President  of the Conference pronounced"We kept 1.5 degrees alive but its pulse is weak. This is the moment of Truth for the planet".  John Kerry softened the embarrassing disappointment by saying "Glasgow was not the finishing line  and was never going to be. Nations will still have much more to do on their emissions cutting goals to ensure the 1.5 limit"  The truth for the Planet  is that the majority of the 20 largest countries contribute to 80 percent of the global emissions . Consequently, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that if all the current long term commitments were fully followed through the world would limit heating to 1.8 degrees in the long term.  However the gap between the long term ambitions and countries' crucial short term targets for 2030 would result in heating of 2.4C. 

This is far removed from the six key demands put forward by Small Island Development States (SIDS)  and Climate Justice advocates.   As Hon. Gaston Brown, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda and  chair of both  SIDS and the CARICOM Community puts it: these six key demands for World Leaders that, if met, should ensure our  nations are not entirely submerged by rising sea levels. They include:

• Decarbonize by rapidly phasing out fossil fuel extraction and ending subsidies.
• Commit to climate finance for small island states to mitigate and adapt.
• Ensure international institutions push harder for cooperation.
• Cancel developing countries debt so they can deal with the impacts of climate change.
• Implement a climate damages tax to make corporations compensate countries for climate related damage.
• Commit to limit global heating by  1.5°C.

As Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley so emphatically and persausively pronounced at  the opening plenary : ‘1.5°C is what we need to survive, 2°C is a death sentence... We do not want that dreaded death sentence, and we've come here to say, try harder.’
In the final analysis, not one of these key demands by SIDS was met in its entirety. While pondering the discussions on the mixed results of Glasgow, few may recall that "1.5 degrees to stay alive"  was the clarion call of the Caribbean at COP15  in Copenhagen, 2009 based on  research by the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre. More immediate however, are  the implications for the Caribbean of two interrelated concerns: (a) Is CARICOM paying heed to the results of related research from our Universities and Scientists? Are our Universities maximizing  the benefits of a collaborative approach to public education and dissemination of their  research findings?        
 
A Vibrant Ecosystem of Research: Keeping Hope Alive in the Caribbean 

COP26 left no doubt that the world is in a race towards renewable energy sources. Even before Glasgow, this was  fully recognized in the seminal  work, The State of the Caribbean Climate by The  Climate Studies Group at UWI Mona, UWI, led by Professor Michael Taylor  in collaboration with The Caribbean Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology led by Dr. Cedric J Van Meerbeck and funded by CDB, April 2020. ( See  link)  It is important to note a companion Report by the Organization Eastern Caribbean States Climate Trends and Projections for the OECS Region which presents the OECS Climate Adaptation Strategy and Action Plan (April 2020). 
https://pressroom.oecs.org/oecs-commission-releases-climate-trends-and-projections-report-for-the-oecs-region. 
​Like the UWI study, it   advocates for adaptation  of climate services involving  preparation and delivery of climate information to meet users' needs with partnerships among providers, researchers and users of climate services. 
The UWI study however is more expansive in advancing policy options,  which can in turn play a key role in facilitating the Caribbean's transition to a resilient future.  Limiting global warming to 1.5°C requires far-reaching transformations across power generation, buildings, industry, transport, land use, coastal zone management, and agriculture, as well as the immediate scale-up of technological carbon removal and climate finance. Accordingly, it promotes decarbonizing by focusing on Power.  It presents the case that wind and solar power generation technologies which are already available at scale, would be the quickest sector to decarbonize. The demand for power would double as other sectors switch to electricity and green hydrogen, requiring renewables production and storage capacity to be rapidly scaled up.  Similarly for transportation, the trend to carbon neutrality in the next decade is based on adoption of electrical vehicles and for agriculture,  using more efficient sources of energy.   The policy guidance from these two  studies but particular UWI's,  revolves  around  three pillars of functional' cooperation:
   

• Plan for current climate but be guided by the lessons of the past.
• Plan for the future climate but do it collaboratively. 
• Prioritize harnessing and enhancing regional strengths and expertise in support of improved decision making regionally.

The directives from these studies   identify underlying conditions that enable adequate        responses to climate change.  They include supportive policies, innovations, strong institutions, leadership, and shifts in social norms.  It is interesting to note that The Watchdog Climate Action Tracker (CAT) states that global greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 will still be roughly twice as high as what's necessary to limit warming to 1.5 degrees — a threshold scientists have said the planet should stay under to avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis. The net-zero goals of 40 countries account for 85% of global emissions cuts, but the group found only 6% of those emissions were backed up by concrete plans. At this rate Finance for climate action, one of the major demands from SIDS, for example, must increase nearly 13-fold to meet the estimated need in 2030.

Glimmers of Hope through Coalitions of the Willing 

There are however glimmers of hope that even the watered down commitments from  Glasgow will reshape the Global Agenda as coalitions of the willing continue to work on critical solutions. It is apparent that the net-zero imperative is no longer in question. Among the limited  successes for SIDS to be built on are that  more than 130 countries that represent more than 85% of the planet's forests pledged last week to end and reverse deforestation and land degradation by 2030, and more than 25 countries have so far signed on to an agreement to stop financing fossil fuel projects abroad but no mention of doing so at home. 
 
Many of the net-zero commitments made in Glasgow came from coalitions of the stakeholders—governments, financial institutions, companies, multilateral organizations, civil society, youth and others. This is a major shift in gears among coalitions since Paris, who must participate if systemic problems are going to be solved. How can Caribbean Countries tap into these sources  and/or create necessary coalitions in the region and globally are to be found  in  a  very useful analysis of McKinsey Sustainability Report (November 12, 2021) that    published a summary of five key priorities coming out of Glasgow: 

• Companies can gain competitive advantage from translating net-zero pledges into netzero plans
• The money to finance the transition is forming; markets and institutions are needed to channel capital
• Securing green materials and decarbonizing assets will mitigate risk amid shortages and price volatility
• Measurement and disclosure are unavoidable; using digital to create transparency can have benefits
• Investments in resilience can protect people and companies from physical climate hazards

 
Conclusions: Reimagining Climate Resilience - Building on the work of Caribbean Scientists 
​
The big questions of financing adaptation and mitigation remain  critical for  SIDS and CARICOM. To what extent is the Caribbean Agenda totally dependent on external sources? Are carbon credits and  carbon taxes (raised in a previous blog) viable  options for reducing dependence of SIDS/CARICOM? What's to be done? . 
GOFAD has previously advocated for a greater level of cooperation among Caribbean Universities to advance the Region's achieving  2030 Sustainable Development Goals.  Capability for intellectual leadership in these endeavours is clearly illustrated in several ways. These include  the UWI Climate Studies Group referred in this blog; the  Green Environment Workshop of the University of Guyana Green Institute;  the UWI Resilience Network  established to contribute to the sustainable and resilient development of the Caribbean; the Centennial Legacy of Agriculture at UWI St Augustine to mark 100 years of the establishment of the Imperial College Tropical Agriculture August 30, 1921, which became known  as the University  College of the West Indies St Augustine in 1960, the University of Guyana (Berbice)  Campus Microbiology Training Workshop;  and the Human Heredity Environment and Health in the Caribbean (H3EC) Initiative  involved in genomics research. In addition, Vidia S Roopchand, a UG graduate lead researcher for the Pfizer COVID- 19 vaccine is an outstanding example. More than ever GOFAD reaffirms its "Random thoughts on Universities  in the post COVID 19 era: Time for a regional conversation" (GOFAD Blog 4/29/21)     
https://www.globalonefrontier.org/blog/random-thoughts-on-universities-in-the-post-covid-19-era-time-for-a-regional-conversation
 
 
Eddie Greene