The Caribbean and the Climate Change Negotiations in Copenhagen, December 2009

• Author: Ulric Trotz
• Pages: 421-426

THE CARIBBEAN AND THE

CLIMATE CHANGE NEGOTIATIONS

IN COPENHAGEN, DECEMBER 2009

Ulric Trotz

29

In 1994, the global community acceded to

an international agreement, the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change

(UNFCCC), which was designed to consider

what can be done to reduce global warming

and to cope with whatever temperature

increases are inevitable. The Convention sets

an ultimate objective of stabilising greenhouse

gas concentrations “at a level that would

prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human

induced) interference with the climate

system.” It states that “such a level should

be achieved within a time-frame suff‌icient

to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally

to climate change, to ensure that food

production is not threatened, and to enable

economic development to proceed in a

sustainable manner.” At the time when the

Convention came into force, there were still

doubts being expressed by many skeptics about

the need for such an agreement, and many

questioned the veracity of the assertion by

the scientif‌ic community that the signif‌icant

accumulation of Green House Gases (GHGs)

in the earth’s atmosphere was the basis of the

phenomenon of global warming.

Despite the skepticism in some quarters, at

their meeting in Barbados in 1994, Small Island

Developing States (SIDS), which included

the low-lying coastal states in the Caribbean

formulated the Barbados Plan Of Action

(BPOA) which accorded the highest priority

to climate change. The plan was devised in

response to the many environmental challenges

these countries were expected to face as they

pursued the attainment of their sustainable

development goals. Years later, at a meeting

in Mauritius in 2005, the SIDS reiterated the

importance and urgency of addressing climate

change risks, which had now evolved from the

status of an environmental problem to that of a

serious global developmental challenge.

After the Barbados meeting, CARICOM

countries commenced a programme to address

the climate change issue. At the onset, as small

vulnerable developing countries, the focus of

such a programme was on building capacity to

adapt to climate change. There was an emerging

consensus that as a result of the inertia in the

global climate system, humanity was now

living in a world committed to climate change.

As a consequence, GHG emissions should

have ceased completely – there was enough

in the atmosphere to trigger continued global

warming – hence, the need for vulnerable

developing (and developed countries) to adapt,

i.e., to increase the resilience of their humanly

built, natural and socioeconomic systems to

climate change risks.

Accordingly, the region successfully

negotiated support from the Global

Environmental Facility (GEF) for the

implementation of the Caribbean Planning

for Adaptation to Climate Change (CPACC

1997–2001) project. This was followed by the

Canadian International Development Agency

(CIDA)-supported Adaptation to Climate

Change in the Caribbean (ACCC 2001–

2004) and the GEF-supported Mainstreaming

of Adaptation to Climate Change (MACC