A few planes packed with sun hungry, vitamin D seeking tourists are expected to arrive tonight, on the island of St Lucia. It’s Sunday evening, the first week of December and I have already secured a spot on Rodney Bay Beach where I can look out for miles and listen to the waves bathing the shore. As I watch the orange-red sun in the distance seemingly cresting on the water’s edge, I can’t help thinking, while many will soak up the day’s rays and linger at dusk to gaze at the St Lucian sunset, few will notice the pirate on the horizon, the man made thief threatening to destroy much that makes this island and the Caribbean, paradise on earth.
Scientists first spotted this covert pirate in the 1960’s. While its full nature and course is not known, the signs of its plans to loot and pillage are surfacing. “We are seeing real change in climate patterns, more extreme hurricanes, heavy downpours causing flooding, and in Cuba extended periods of drought,” says Dr Ulric Trotz, Science Advisor for the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre.
Over the past two decades powerful and more frequent storms and hurricanes in the Caribbean battered and tore away buildings, roads and infrastructure. In 2004, Hurricane Ivan wiped out 200% of Grenada’s GDP, uprooting miles of white sand coastline, destroying millions of dollars worth of spice crops, homes and infrastructure.
Hurricanes, however, constitute only a small cache of the arsenal climate change carries. Frequent and more intense droughts, prolonged rainy periods, powerful wind storms, rising sea levels are some, as well as ocean acidification, the bleaching of coral reefs and the destruction of sea grasses and mangroves, vital to the Caribbean and the world’s marine ecosystem.
For a region where tourism can account for over 60% of GDP, climate change is a serious economic threat. Bleaching of coral reefs will not only damage snorkelling and deep sea diving tourist attractions, if unchecked, it will eventually cause the deterioration of beaches. “When the corals die the sandy white beaches go away. The more coral you lose the more beaches you lose,” says Lelei Lelaulu, a development entrepreneur and Vice President of the Caribbean Media Exchange (CMEx) which held its 18th conference on sustainable tourism in St Lucia in December 2009. The parrot fish feeds on coral rock, regurgitating its food as white sand and it is dying off because of ocean acidification, says Lelailu.
Acidification is also causing the hard shells of ocean crustaceans like crayfish and oysters to dissolve, says Dr. Noel Brown, former director of the United Nations Environment Program and CMEx guest speaker. “The choral structure of marine life is being compromised and we don’t know how to fix it,” adds Brown.
With acidification, a reduction in spawning and eventually the extermination of entire fish species is expected. Agricultural food supplies are at risk. With prolonged droughts, soil moisture decreases and with more frequent and intense hurricanes, sea water seeps into coastal soils, leading to decreased crop yields. Add hotter days due to global warming and the Caribbean islands are likely to face an increase in vector born diseases like malaria, dengue and yellow fever.
Unbridled climate change will also cause population displacement. In fifty years, projected sea levels will rise 30-50 cm, according to a 2005 climate change report from Jamaica’s environment ministry. With over half the Caribbean population living within a mile of the coast, this is a significant issue for at least ten SIDS with land one metre above sea-level and a more troubling problem for others with land below, like the Bahamas, the Cayman and Virgin islands.
“The planet is coming close to the tipping point where the damage will be irreversible and the consequences dire,” says Trotz. The Copenhagen Caribbean’s delegation lead scientist, Trotz, has helped the region make its case for financial assistance. A 1994 $6.5 million grant from the Organization of American States and a later Canadian International Development Agency grant of CAD $3.5 million have been used to develop a regional sea level and climate monitoring system, a database for examining climate change effects, including coral reef monitoring and data access, so governments can better articulate regional positions during UN and other international negotiations.
Important steps; however, the fate of SIDS lies largely in the hands of established industrialized and large emerging economies. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, SIDS account for less than 1% of greenhouse gas emissions and are amongst the most vulnerable to the potential adverse effects of climate change and sea level rise.
In Copenhagen, SIDS called for a cap on greenhouse gas emissions that would keep global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees centigrade adopting the slogan, “1.5 to stay alive,”
While the plight of SIDS and other developing countries dominated the news, delegates left Copenhagen with a non binding accord that says signatories will try to keep global warming temperature levels at or below 2 degrees Celsius and allocate $30 billion towards mitigating the effects of climate change by 2012.
Many fear as a consequence major polluters will take little or no action. However, given climate change is rapidly affecting all nations, there is cause for some optimism.
Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans, California’s raging forest fires and the loss of millions of dollars of real estate, floods from heavy rains and the aftermath of fierce snow storms are signs of climate change’s growing impact in the U.S., so are Europe’s heat waves, floods and acid rain precipitated deterioration of historic buildings and prize tourist attractions. In China, where 82% of its energy comes from coal-fired power plants, scorching temperatures and continuous drought in 2006 affected an area nearly three times the size of Germany, leading the government to announce there would be a 37% drop in the production of corn, rice, and wheat over the next fifty years.
While SIDS, like all countries, must bear some responsibility for fossil fuel and greenhouse gas created climate change and take steps to adapt and prevent further damage, scientists claim the pirate on the Caribbean horizon is 99% the result of industrialized nations and emerging giants. It is not unreasonable therefore that they should bear the global cost of prevention and adaptation in proportion to their footprint. If these countries do not agree and take concrete action soon, the pirate will, in time, steal not just the paradise we call the Caribbean, but many of the beautiful, natural and constructed habitats humanity enjoys on every corner of earth. {w}
i am spartacus: anthology I - 2009
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