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Caribbean organizations want U.S. help on climate change [1]

["Caricom'S Facebook Page"]

Date: 2023-10

Members of the Caribbean Community, or CARICOM, met in Trinidad and Tobago in July 2023 to discuss a number of regional issues, which included climate change.

Dozens of civil society organizations across the Caribbean are calling on the Biden administration to do more to support their countries in responding to climate change, including helping them to get the necessary funds to respond to disasters exacerbated by the crisis.

More than 50 organizations have signed a letter addressed to President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen seeking relief. The letter, whioh was to be sent Tuesday, notes that Caribbean countries contribute the least to the climate crisis yet bear the brunt of some of its worse effects as hurricanes and tropical storms increase in frequency and intensity.

“The cost of these disasters will increase in tandem,” the letter said. “Caribbean countries have lost an estimated $30 billion in GDP due to extreme weather events between 2000 and 2014. When combined, these two great challenges — soaring debt burdens and climate change — are a recipe for disaster in our region.”

The group has the support of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington think tank. “These countries are asking the [International Monetary Fund] to assist them with liquidity and reserves,” said Dan Beeton, a spokesman for the center.

The letter outlines several policy shifts the administration can pursue including with the IMF, which provides development assistance to nations. For one, Caribbean countries should be able to access more financial assistance from the IMF, the letter argues

“These countries are asking the IMF to assist them with liquidity and reserves,” said Beeton, adding that civil society groups want Caribbean nations to have access to $650 billion in an international reserve asset created by the fund to supplement the official reserves of member countries.

In June of 2022, the Biden administration launched the U.S. Caribbean Partnership to Address the Climate Crisis 2030, known as PACC 2030, and this past June, Caribbean leaders met with Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss a number of climate-related initiatives.

Caribbean leaders as recent as July raised concerns about the need for countries like the U.S. and monetary institutions to do more to assist them.

“The concerns are there’s still enormous shocks going on in the global economy and to a large degree, unprecedented. You have this pandemic, you’ve got the climate crisis which is very costly and there’s a lot of needs for these Caribbean countries,” Beeton said. “There are a lot of needs and these are countries that aren’t able to engage in the kinds of stimulus that the U.S. and Europe did with COVID, so they need other avenues to respond to all of these crises.”

During a gathering of Caribbean leaders in Trinidad and Tobago in July, members of the 15-nation regional bloc known as the Caribbean Community raised concerns about climate change and its impact on their vulnerable, tourism-based economies. Among those who attended the meeting were Rwanda President Paul Kagame, who said that Africa and the Caribbean share some of the same challenges, and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

Guterres has been pushing for a new framework, which would include efforts to keep pressure on donor countries regarding financing and targets for the reduction of carbon emissions. Over the weekend, the U.N. chief, attending the Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, again raise the issue of “climate chaos” and its effects on developing nations.

“Today, I renewed my call for the world to step up climate action to avoid the worst effects of climate change, keep global promises to provide essential support,” Guterres said in remarks to the press.

He said there needs to be an effective debt-relief mechanism that supports payment suspensions, longer lending terms and lower rates to address the “outdated, unfair and dysfunctional global financial system,” in which countries in the Caribbean and Africa pay more for borrowing than the U.S. and Europe.

“It means re-capitalizing and changing the business model of multilateral development banks so they can massively leverage private finance at affordable rates to help developing countries build truly sustainable economies,” Guterres said.

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[1] Url: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article278966789.html

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