Partnerships needed in addressing Climate Change

The global climate is changing, and the Caribbean region is feeling the change. Higher global surface temperatures, sea level rise, changes in rainfall patterns, and higher frequency and intensity of extreme events such as floods, droughts and heat waves all threaten the Caribbean with its many small island states.

The potential implications of these climatic changes are enormous, not only from the perspective of risk reduction, but also with regards to regional development.

These were some of the issues that were discussed at the just concluded Climate Change Adaptation, Development and Disaster Reduction workshop which was held in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad by the ProVention Consortium in collaboration with the Caribbean Regional Representation Office of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Fifty persons from the Red Cross, civil society organizations, local government, regional organizations, private sector and academic institutions met for two days under the theme: “Strengthening Community Resilience in the Caribbean,” to discuss ways of working together to identify adaptation strategies to deal with the impact of climate change in vulnerable communities.

The main aim of the workshop was to engage stakeholders to work with vulnerable communities in designing strategies to deal with the consequences of climate change specifically in the areas of human development and livelihood issues.

Bruno Haghebaert of ProVention said the magnitude of the expected challenges ahead will be too big for only one actor to effectively address. He noted that a multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral approach was necessary.

“From grassroots to policymakers, each individual has a specific role to play. However, only involving multiple actors within a specific field is not sufficient. A mixture of climate adaptation measures and sustainable development strategies, as well as poverty reduction initiatives and disaster risk reduction efforts in the region will be required if one does not only want to deal with  the symptoms but also address the root causes of vulnerability and increase adaptive capacity.”

Mr Haghebaert noted that it was also essential to discuss ways of injecting and integrating lessons learned at the community level and priorities expressed by local voices into the decision making processes as it relates to climate change.

The outcomes from this meeting will be presented at the ProVention Annual Global Forum in Panama from April 8-10, 2008. The theme of that meeting is “From Grassroots to Global: People Centered Disaster Risk Reduction.”