By Desmond Brown
ST. JOHN'S, Antigua, Dec 29 2015 (IPS)

Climate change has brought with it many challenges for the people of Antigua and Barbuda.

Residents here have been building dams and ponds for centuries, harvesting rainwater to irrigate crops and provide drinking water for their livestock.

But for more than two years the island’s main reservoir, the Potswork Dam, has been dry.

With the persistent drought showing no signs of letting up, islanders have been warned to brace for further challenges over the coming months.

Mangroves being cleared on Antigua's Guiana Island to make way for the construction of a road. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
GUIANA ISLAND, Antigua, May 18 2015 (IPS)

In June 2014, Gaston Browne led his Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party to a resounding victory at the polls with a pledge to transform the country into an economic powerhouse in the Caribbean.

In their first 100 days in office, Prime Minister Browne’s Cabinet approved a number of private investment projects valued in excess of three billion dollars."We want to see the prosperity of Antigua and Barbuda but what... are we willing to give up to have a few more jobs?" -- Tahambay Smith

The largest is the Yida Investment Group, Guiana Island Project which will see the development of the largest free trade zone in the country, an off-shore financial centre, a five-star luxury resort, internationally branded villa communities, a casino and gaming complex, a multi-purpose conference centre, a 27-hole golf course, a marina and landing facilities, commercial, retail, sports and other auxillary facilities.

Headquartered in western Beijing, Yida International Investment Group was founded in 2011.

But Yida’s clearing of mangroves on Guiana Island to start the proposed development has raised the ire of local environmentalists who have launched an online petition calling on Prime Minister Browne not to allow the Chinese developers to break laws and to conserve the Marine Protected Areas.

“Climate change is going to change a lot of things that we know and understand about our environment and unless we are mitigating these outcomes it is just wasting time and effort to have something built and then 20 years down the line it would not be viable,” President of the Environment Awareness Group (EAG), Tahambay Smith told IPS.

“Climate change is upon us. What if 10 years from now the development is rendered non-viable because climate change has led to rising sea levels or something?” he said.

“First of all you are talking about a place that is naturally protected because anyone that’s familiar with that area knows that you have a natural reef buffer zone that basically protects us from the raging Atlantic,” he added.

Guiana Island, located off the northeast coast of Antigua between the Parham Peninsula and Crump Island, is the fourth largest island of Antigua and Barbuda. It is a refuge for the Fallow Deer, Antigua’s national animal.

Smith said building a marina in the area would also result in the destruction of reefs and removal of sea grass beds, adding that a few jobs and some investment dollars do no equate to the importance of preserving the environment for future generations.

“Yes we’re all clamouring for jobs and we want to see the prosperity of Antigua and Barbuda but to what detriment and to what extent are we willing to give up to have a few more jobs? The value of mangroves to us as human beings is well documented by scientists. They provide nesting grounds and a breeding ground for fishes, lobsters, crustaceans and many others that aren’t really tied to the Antiguan shores,” Smith said.

“You might have nursing grounds here that affect St. Kitts, St, Maarten, Guadeloupe – the closer islands. It may extend beyond those islands but if you do something here in Antigua and you destroy these things, then that could affect our neighbours. It is not a matter of us just looking about our affairs or just looking for our own interest. It’s a network; these things are interconnected.”

Ruth Spencer, who serves as National Focal Point for the Global Environment Facility (GEF)-Small Grants Programme (SGP) in Antigua and Barbuda, agrees with Smith.

“Our God-given marine ecosystems designed to protect our fragile economies must be protected,” she told IPS.

“How will we adapt to the impacts of climate change if these systems are threatened? The protection of our marine ecosystems is our natural adaptation strategy. Once destroyed, how will be build resilience?”

Eli Fuller is the President of the Antigua Conservation Society (ACS), the group spearheading the petition which outlines that Guiana Island falls within an area protected by the nation’s Fisheries Act and also falls within the North East Marine Management Area (NEMMA), which was designated a Marine Protected Area in 2005.

“There isn’t much on a small island that isn’t related to climate change these days and even more when you are speaking about a massive development all taking place at sea level within an extremely important area designated by law as a Marine Protected Area and zoned as an area for conservation,” Fuller told IPS.

President of the Antigua Conservation Society Eli Fuller says mangrove habitats help to limit the effects of coastal erosion seen more commonly with climate change. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

“Mangrove habitats help limit the effect of coastal erosion seen more commonly with climate change. Additionally, climate change possibly will see stronger storms, longer droughts and more severe floods. Mangrove habitats help filter sediments that run off from dry dusty landcapes whenever there’s a heavy rainfall or flood,” Fuller said.

“Filtering sediment helps save many ecosystems like corals and grassy beds which get damaged when they are covered in silt or sediment. Speaking of marine eco systems, there are so many things that are negatively affecting them because of climate change. Coral bleaching often happens due to effects of climate change and with weakened coral reefs and other marine ecosystems, careful protection is essential,” he added.

But Prime Minister Browne said those who have raised concerns about the mangroves have taken a fundamentalist position.

“I want to make it abundantly clear that individuals, especially small minority groups with their fundamentalist ideals, those cannot take precedence to the overall good of the country,” Browne said.

He added that, “some fauna may have to be destroyed” as government proceeds with various developments.

“My government does not need to be schooled in the protection of the environment,” Browne added.

Fuller maintains that Prime Minister Browne was the man to petition in large numbers so that he could see that it wasn’t a “fundamentalist” minority that was very concerned with this particular development.

“He has to know that people will hold him accountable for breaches in the laws which are there to protect Marine Protected Areas,” he said.

“The ACS sees a situation where our prime minister acknowledges this groundswell of support for sustainable development and more specifically for making sure that developers adhere to environmental protection laws.

“We think he will meet with us and other NGO groups to hear our concerns and to work together with us and hopefully the developers to ensure that the development is guided in accordance with the law and with modern best practices,” Fuller said.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

A section of Jabberwock beach, located on the northeastern coast of Antigua, that is being eroded by the sea. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
ST. JOHN’S, Antigua, Apr 15 2015 (IPS)

Jabberwock beach, located on the northeastern coast of Antigua, features a mile-long white sand beach and is a favourite with locals and visitors alike. 

But Freeston Williams, a resident who frequents the area for exercise and other recreational activities, is worried that the beach is quickly disappearing."We believe that there is always a point of redemption and I don’t think we’ve gone beyond that point.” -- Barbuda’s chief environment officer Diann Black-Layne

“I travel around the Jabberwock area on the northern side of the island and I notice the shoreline is coming in closer to the road which means that it’s minimising the area we use for exercise,” Williams told IPS.”I am not sure what exactly is causing all this but sooner or later we will not have any beach left.”

Antigua and Barbuda’s chief environment officer Diann Black-Layne said the sea level is in fact rising and she is mobilising legislators and residents of the small island-nation to become “climate ready” by implementing national activities on climate change.

“In the past 10 years we have experienced three droughts in Antigua. The temperature of the Caribbean Sea will have summer temperatures all the time. This means hurricane season will be all year round,” Black-Layne told IPS.

Pointing to the consequences of a two-degree C increase in global temperatures as outlined in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), Black-Layne said there would be disruption of livelihoods in low-lying coastal zones and small island developing states and other small islands, due to storm surges, coastal flooding, and sea-level rise.

“For persons living in the tropics it will just be too hot, every building will have to be air-conditioned – schools, churches, clinics, prisons,” she said.

“There would also be failure of infrastructure such as roads, seaports, airports and buildings; plants and animals, including humans, would die during periods of extreme heat; there will be a breakdown of agricultural systems resulting in food prices increasing; there will be insufficient access to drinking and irrigation water and reduced agricultural productivity; and tropical species of fish will move to cooler waters resulting in a reduction of fishing in the Caribbean.”

Tourism is the mainstay of the economy of Antigua and Barbuda and is the leading sector in terms of providing employment and creating foreign exchange. But the outlook for reefs in this tourism-dependent nation is also grim.

At around 1.5 degrees C, about 89 percent of coral reefs are projected to experience severe bleaching; at two degrees C, up to 100 percent of coral reefs are projected to experience severe bleaching by the 2050s; and around four degrees C, virtually all coral reefs would be subjected to severe bleaching events annually.

Signing the Copenhagen Accord in 2009, world leaders agreed to keep temperature increases resulting from heat-trapping emissions to less than two degrees C, a target aimed at limiting dangerously disruptive climate impacts.

A policy target informed by science, two degrees C is the formally codified benchmark, the line in the sand by which nations have agreed to measure collective success in providing  generations to come with a secure climate future.

The IPCC said global average surface temperatures have risen about 0.85 degrees C since 1900 and cumulative emissions of CO₂ largely determine global mean surface warming by the late 21^st century and beyond. It finds that having a greater than 66 percent probability of keeping warming caused by CO₂ emissions alone to below two degrees C requires limiting total further emissions to between 370-540 gigatonnes of carbon (GtC).

At current rates of CO₂ emissions (about 9.5 GtC per year), the world will hurtle past the two C carbon budget in less than 50 years. And this conservatively assumes that emissions rates don’t continue on their current upward trajectory of 3 percent per year.

In a bid to increase awareness of climate change here, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) is spearheading a two-day workshop Apr. 14-15 under its Rallying the Region to Action on Climate Change (RRACC) project, an initiative funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

An OECS official said participants are being updated on the current awareness levels on the island and will brainstorm to determine ways to increase the nation’s consciousness. Participants are drawn from the sectors most affected by climate change.

“It will specifically seek to discuss the climate ready campaign which is currently ongoing, including results of a Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) survey on climate change awareness in the OECS,” OECS Communication Specialist Tecla Fontenard told IPS.

“We have data that shows what levels of awareness people already have and where the gaps are and we also have data from Antigua. The workshop will also determine priorities for a communication action plan for Antigua that considers critical climate change issues in four major sectors – agriculture, tourism, marine and coastal as well as the water sector.”

Antigua and other countries in the OECS have a heightened vulnerability to many of the economic and environmental pressures that are emerging globally. This vulnerability, coupled with fragile natural and cultural assets and inherent social challenges, presents a special urgency to the sustainable development goals of the region.

Climate change, one of the most significant ongoing challenges to countries in the OECS, is forecast to have devastating environmental, social and economic consequences on OECS countries and Black-Layne said the administration of Prime Minister Gaston Browne will have to develop adaptation strategies, during the next two terms, in order to address several issues including sea level rise and salt water intruding below the island to affect all wells.

“A significant 100 percent of potable water will have to come from desalination, the conch industry will be damaged because of ocean acidification and fisher folk will have to adapt and move into other areas of work,” she said.

But Black-Layne said all is not lost.

“From the Environment Division perspective, when you hear the pronouncements and the predicted impacts of climate change on our country it’s not very encouraging. In fact it’s very depressing and the temptation would be to say what’s the point of doing what we’re doing,” she said.

“But we believe that there is always a point of redemption and I don’t think we’ve gone beyond that point.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Outspoken artist Edison Liburd, in St. John's, Antigua. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
ST. JOHN'S, Antigua, Feb 10 2015 (IPS)

At 49 years old, Edison Liburd has established himself as one of Antigua and Barbuda’s most recognisable artists. But Liburd was not always in the spotlight. In fact, you could say he was a man in hiding.

“I have been infected with the HIV virus for about 24 years. I got my first HIV test done in February of 1993 at the Allen Pavilion Hospital in Manhattan New York,” Liburd told IPS."Equity and social justice are very important as we respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. HIV is as much a social and developmental disease as a medical one." -- Eleanor Frederick

“I can remember that day vividly. I felt like the earth had been removed from beneath me when I was handed the results of the test.”

HIV/AIDS first emerged in the 1980s, and now, more than three decades later, stigma associated with the disease has persisted. Liburd pointed to that sigma as the main reason why he concealed his HIV status for as long as he did.

“I hid my status for years from family. I told a few friends, but most people who I knew did not know anything about my health condition. It was fear of being ostracised that kept me from disclosing my status,” he said.

“In Antigua, HIV infected individuals still have to face job insecurity – first to be fired and last to be hired. Stigma and discrimination is still high because many still think themselves superior to individuals who are infected.

“Somehow they think themselves better than, but I believe that it is when infected individuals become empowered by taking hold of their health and indispensable to nation building that this will take a huge bite out of discrimination. People will begin to see you differently,” Liburd said.

The Caribbean is one of the most heavily affected regions in the world, with adult HIV prevalence about one percent higher than in any other region outside sub-Saharan Africa.

The HIV pandemic in the Caribbean is fuelled by a range of social and economic inequalities and is sustained by high levels of stigma, discrimination against the most at-risk and marginalised populations and persistent gender inequality, violence and homophobia.

HIV in the Caribbean is mostly concentrated in and around networks of men who have sex with men. Social stigma, however, has kept the epidemic among men who have sex with men hidden and unacknowledged. There is also a notable burden of infection among injecting drug users, sex workers and the clients of sex workers.

The main mode of transmission in the Caribbean is unprotected heterosexual intercourse – paid or otherwise. Sex between men is also thought to be a significant factor in several countries, although due to social stigma, this is mainly denied.

The level of stigma and discrimination suffered by those infected and affected by the virus in the Caribbean helps drive the epidemic underground. This makes it difficult to reach many groups.

After facing the worst of his fears, being hospitalised and getting close to death’s door, Liburd has “resolved to fight back against the discrimination by increasing my capacity to help others in every way through my gift of art and my voice on and in the media, in church and otherwise.

“This has really been a powerhouse for me. I have become more confident and bold when faced with opposition. It has and is still more than ever being a source of inspiration and encouragement for many who hear my story, both infected and non-infected alike.”

Executive director of the Antigua and Barbuda HIV/AIDS Network (ABHAN), Eleanor Frederick, said individuals living with HIV face many challenges such as unemployment, homelessness, and in some cases, they are abandoned by their families.

She said there are also other issues that are faced by some individuals “such as stigma, discrimination, resource shortage and social marginalisation” depending on the community with which they identify such as sexuality, gender, commercial sex workers, men who have sex with men, drug users and prisoners.

“Many individuals are reluctant to start treatment because of the myths and stories about HIV and AIDS,” Frederick told IPS. “Healthcare providers, peers and treatment navigators can help individuals to understand, the barriers and how to overcome them.”

ABHAN has a Peer/Buddy HIV Treatment Adherence Programmme which recruits, monitors and retains patients into treatment and care and ensures that they adhere to their treatment regimen. It also delivers a comprehensive package of services, including case management, leading to decreased risky sexual behaviour, improved immune system functioning, and general health improvement.

“The programme provides direct support services by specially trained ABHAN and American University of Antigua Medical School (AUA) student volunteers, in the form of social interaction, emotional support, monitoring of medication adherence, and facilitation of health care concerns to persons living with HIV and AIDS, and to members of their families,” Frederick told IPS.

At the country level, she said while there is legislation which specifically addresses the treatment of employees living with HIV/AIDS, it is not always followed.

“A pilot programme was undertaken in 2012. The intention was to encourage the implementation and observance of the standards set out in the International Labour Organisation (ILO) code of practice on HIV/AIDS and the world of work, the ILO Recommendation No. 200 as well as the National Tripartite Workplace Policy on HIV and AIDS in Antigua and Barbuda; based on the universal human rights standards applicable to HIV and the world of work,” Frederick explained.

“Individuals have lost their jobs because of their HIV status and others have been asked to take an HIV test when it was suspected that they were possibly infected.”

The ABHAN executive director said HIV should be everyone’s concern, because “HIV does not discriminate, and knows no borders.”

She added that “equity and social justice are very important as we respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. HIV is as much a social and developmental disease as a medical one.

“Therefore, I would like to encourage everyone to help improve the quality of life for people with HIV and AIDS and increase compassion for them and their loved ones by providing vital human services for those in need of it based on a philosophy of non-judgmental support as practiced by ABHAN.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Terry-Ann Lewis fears that this drain which runs through her community could lead to catastrophe if it is unable to handle heavy storm runoff. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
GREEN BAY, Antigua, Jan 28 2015 (IPS)

It was early on a Saturday morning and there was no sign of life in the community. The shacks erected on both sides of the old, narrow road that winds through the area are all surrounded by zinc sheets which rise so high, it’s impossible to see what lies on the other side.

But behind those walls is a story of life on the margins: poverty and fear for women. In spite of noticeable improvements in the overall quality of life in Antigua and Barbuda, inequality and deprivation continue to challenge development, with pockets of extreme poverty in some areas.“Whenever the rain comes, it floods my mother’s house, it floods my house and it floods my daughter’s house.” -- Cynthia James

For Cynthia James and other women living in this shoreline community on the outskirts of the capital St. John’s, hope is all but lost.

“A politician came here once and called me a dog,” James said as she stood outside her gate holding her one-year-old grandson. “The politician said all of us in here are dogs and are not used to anything good and we will always be dogs. I will never forget that. When you get hurt you never forget it.”

The two main political parties here hold differing views about the level of poverty and unemployment in the country. The Antigua Labour Party (ALP) has consistently placed the poverty level at around 35 per cent but the United Progressive Party (UPP) placed the percentage of the working population living on less than EC$10 a day at 12 per cent, the lowest in the region.

“The highest is in Haiti: 79 percent of the population, that is eight out of 10, live on approximately EC$10 a day. Guyana, 64 percent; Suriname, 45 percent; Jamaica, 43 percent; Dominica, 33 percent; St Vincent & the Grenadines, 33 percent; Grenada, 32 percent; St. Kitts, 31 percent; Trinidad, 21 percent; St. Lucia, 19 percent; Barbados, 14 percent; Antigua, 12 percent,” said former legislator Harold Lovell, citing World Bank figures. Lovell served a minister of finance in the former administration.

James, 53, does not care much for the numbers being debated by politicians. For year now, she and the other women living in this vulnerable area have been watching a drain which runs through the community wreak havoc on their modest dwellings whenever it rains.

James, her 78-year-old mother Gertrude and 28-year-old daughter Terry-Ann Lewis all live on the same street. Their biggest fear now is that the drain which runs through the area will one day cause their deaths.

Antiguan resident Cynthia James said a politican once called her a dog. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

“When I was a little girl they would always come and clean out the gutter, they would send the prisoners to clean up the area, but all of that has stopped,” James told IPS. “Whenever the rain comes, it floods my mother’s house, it floods my house and it floods my daughter’s house.”

The dozens of families here have thought about moving to safer communities but they say they are just too poor to relocate without assistance.

In 2014, the issue of poor drainage that leads to flooding in this and other communities across the country came into focus with a series of community consultations led by the Environment Division.

Senior Environment Officer Ruleta Camacho said the aim was to establish a sustainable financing mechanism and develop a climate adaptation project that could bring about significant changes to affected communities.

“Due to the impact of climate change we are having exacerbated drought and exacerbated rainfall – we are having large amounts of rain in a short amount of time and what we need to do at this point is to make sure our waterways and drains can handle that volume of water,” she said.

Terryann Lewis is anxiously awaiting the commencement of the promised project. She recalled her brush with death on Oct. 13, 2014 when Tropical Storm Gonzalo passed near Antigua, tearing roofs from people’s homes and knocking down trees.

For several hours, heavy rain and strong winds lashed Antigua, which bore the brunt of the storm as it cut through the northern Leeward Islands. Downed trees blocked many island roads and people lost power or reported that the storm damaged, or in some cases destroyed the roofs of their homes.

“I went to sleep that night and when I woke up, I was in water. I had just come home from work and I was tired so I just went to sleep but when I woke up the whole place was flooded. Everything gone; everything was soaked or washed away. I lost everything and I had to start fresh again,” Lewis told IPS.

“The gutter that runs through this community collects waste from all over the place so everything ends up right here in this community.

“That gutter is going to kill all of us; that is the only thing I can tell you. The gutter is blocked so whenever we have rain the water is not free to run. The drain is clogged up so the water quickly overflows. Whenever it rains this whole area is like a beach,” she added.

Prime Minister Gaston Browne, whose administration came to power just seven months ago, said his government will focus on improving human development, putting people first. He has consistently said he intends to make Antigua the region’s economic powerhouse, a Singapore on the Caribbean Sea.

“We will focus on building our human capital into internationally competitive individuals capable of driving the growth and social development of our nation state,” Browne said.

“We will concentrate on youth empowerment, providing our youth with employment, the opportunity to own a piece of the rock under our land for youth programme, a home under our home for youth programme or his/her own business through a dedicated entrepreneurial loan programme, that will commence in 2015 at the Antigua & Barbuda Development Bank.

“Our main focus of human development will be through education and training. No one will be left behind,” Browne added.

The International Monetary Fund anticipates growth in Latin America and the Caribbean in the region of 2.2 percent for 2015. This represents something of a rebound for the region, as growth in 2014 was estimated to be 1.3 percent.

But whether that figure will translate into improved living conditions for the poorest and most vulnerable remains to be seen.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at destinydlb@gmail.com

In 2010, the 13-kilometre-long island of Nevis launched the first-ever wind farm to be commissioned in the OECS with a promise to provide jobs for islanders, a reliable supply of wind energy, cheaper electricity and a reduction in surcharge and the use of imported oils. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, Jan 13 2015 (IPS)

The Caribbean nation of St. Kitts and Nevis, on a quest to become the world’s first sustainable island state, has taken a giant leap in its programme to cut energy costs.

Last week, the government broke ground to construct the country’s second solar farm, and Prime Minister Dr. Denzil Douglas told IPS his administration is “committed to free the country from the fossil fuel reliance” which has burdened so many nations for so very long.“This farm will reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that St. Kitts and Nevis pumps into the atmosphere. It will move forward our country’s determination to transform St. Kitts and Nevis into a green and sustainable nation." -- Prime Minister Dr. Denzil Douglas

Douglas said the aim is “to harness the power of the sun – a power which nature has given to us in such great abundance in this very beautiful country, St. Kitts and Nevis.

“The energy generated will be infused into the national grid, and this will reduce SKELEC’s need for imported fossil fuels,” he said, referring to the state electricity provider.

“This farm will reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that St. Kitts and Nevis pumps into the atmosphere. It will move forward our country’s determination to transform St. Kitts and Nevis into a green and sustainable nation. It will reduce the cost of energy and it will reduce the cost of electricity for our consumers,” Douglas added.

Electricity costs more than 42.3 cents per KWh in St. Kitts and Nevis.

Construction of the second solar plant is being funded by the St. Kitts Electricity Corporation (SKELEC) and the Republic of China (Taiwan). SKELEC is assuming 45 percent of the cost and the Republic of China (Taiwan) 55 percent of the costs.

The first solar farm, commissioned in September 2013, generates electricity for the Robert L. Bradshaw International Airport.

Meanwhile, as environmental sustainability gains traction in the Caribbean, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Achim Steiner, said the region is on the right track to better integrate environmental considerations into public policies.

“I think in some respects it is in the Caribbean that we are already seeing some very bold leadership,” Steiner told IPS.

“The minute countries start looking at the implications of environmental change on their future and the future of their economies, you begin to realise that if you don’t integrate environmental sustainability, you are essentially going to face, very often, higher risks and higher costs and perhaps the loss of assets.” He said such assets could include land, forests, coral reefs or fisheries.

Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Achim Steiner. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Caribbean coral reefs have experienced drastic losses in the past several decades and this has been cited by numerous studies as the primary cause of ongoing declines of Caribbean fish populations. Fish use the structure of corals for shelter and they also contribute to coastal protection.

It has been estimated that fisheries associated with coral reefs in the Caribbean region are responsible for generating net annual revenues valued at or above 310 million dollars.

Continued degradation of the region’s few remaining coral reefs would diminish these net annual revenues by an estimated 95-140 million dollars annually from 2015. The subsequent decrease in dive tourism could also profoundly affect annual net tourism revenues.

Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne said his government will not be left behind in pursuit of a policy of reducing the carbon footprint by incorporating more renewable energy into the mix.

“Barbuda will become a green-energy island within a short period, as more modern green technology is installed there to generate all the electricity that Barbuda needs,” Browne, who’s Antigua Labour Party formed the government here in June 2014, told IPS.

“My government’s intention is to significantly reduce Antigua’s reliance on fossil fuels. A target of 20 percent reliance on green energy, in the first term of this administration, is being pursued vigorously.”

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) released a new report Monday which provides a plan to double the share of renewable energy in the world’s energy mix by 2030.

IRENA’s renewable energy roadmap, REmap 2030, also determines the potential for the U.S. and other countries to scale up renewable energy in the energy system, including power, industry, buildings, and the transport sector.

“This report adds to the growing chorus of studies that show the increasing cost competitiveness and potential of renewable energy in the U.S.,” said Dolf Gielen, director of IRENA’s Innovation and Technology Centre.

“Importantly, it shows the potential of renewables isn’t just limited to the power sector, but also has tremendous potential in the buildings, industry and transport sectors.”

Next week, efforts to scale up global renewable energy expansion will continue as government leaders from more than 150 countries and representatives from 110 international organisations gather in Abu Dhabi for IRENA’s fifth Assembly.

After spending the better part of 25 years trying to understand the threat of global warming, manifesting itself in greenhouse gas emissions and carbon dioxide emissions, the UNEP executive director said only slowly are we beginning to realise that in trying to address this threat we’re actually beginning to lay the tracks for what he calls “the 21st century economy” – which is more resource efficient, less polluting, and a driver for innovation and utilising the potential of technology.

“So you can take that track and say climate change is a threat or you can also say out of this threat arise a lot of actions that have multiple benefits,” Steiner said.

“We also have to realise that in a global economy where most countries today are faced with severe unemployment and, most tragically, youth unemployment, we need to start also looking at a transition towards a green economy as also an opportunity to make it a more inclusive green economy.”

Steiner said one of the core items that UNEP would like to see much more work on is a better understanding of how countries can reform their taxation system to send a signal to the economy that they want to drive businesses away from pollution and resource inefficiency.

At the same time, the UNEP boss wants countries to also address unemployment.

“So we need to reduce this strange phenomenon that we call income tax which makes labour as a factor of production ever more expensive,” Steiner said.

“So shifting from an income tax revenue base for governments towards a resource efficiency based income or revenue generating physical policy makes sense environmentally. It maintains the revenue base of governments and it also increases the incentive for people to find jobs again. It’s complex in one sense but very obvious in another sense.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at destinydlb@gmail.com

As concern mounts over food security, two community groups are on a drive to mobilise average people across Antigua and Barbuda to mitigate and adapt in the wake of global climate change, which is affecting local weather patterns and by extension, agricultural production.

“I want at least 10,000 people in Antigua and Barbuda to join with me in this process of trying to mitigate against the effects of climate change,” Dr. Evelyn Weekes told IPS.

Bhimwattie Sahid picks a papaya in her backyard garden in Guyana. Food security is a growing concern for the Caribbean as changing weather patterns affect agriculture. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

“I am choosing the area of agriculture because that is one of the areas that will be hardest hit by climate change and it’s one of the areas that contribute so much to climate change.

“I plan to mobilise at least 10,000 households in climate action that involves waste diversion, composting and diversified ecological farming,” said Weekes, who heads the Aquaponics, Aquaculture and Agro-Ecology Society of Antigua and Barbuda.

She said another goal of the project is “to help protect our biodiversity, our ecosystems and our food security” by using the ecosystem functions in gardening as this would prevent farmers from having to revert to monocrops, chemical fertilisers and pesticide use.

Food security is a growing concern, not just for Antigua and Barbuda but all Small Island Developing States (SIDS), as changing weather patterns affect agriculture.

Scientists are predicting more extreme rain events, including flooding and droughts, and more intense storms in the Atlantic in the long term.

Weekes said the projects being proposed for smallholder farmers in vulnerable areas would be co-funded by the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme (GEF SGP).

“Our food security is one of the most precious things that we have to look at now and ecologically sound agriculture is what is going to help us protect that,” Weekes said.

“I am appealing to churches, community groups, farmers’ groups, NGOs, friendly societies, schools, etc., to mobilise their members so that we can get 10,000 or more people strong trying to help in mitigating and adapting to climate change.”

Dr. Weekes explained that waste diversion includes redirecting food from entering the Cooks landfill in a national composting effort.

“Don’t throw kitchen scraps in your garbage because where are they going to end up? They are going to end up in the landfill and will cause more methane to be released into the atmosphere,” she said.

Methane and carbon dioxide are produced as organic matter decomposes under anaerobic conditions (without oxygen), and higher amounts of organic matter, such as food scraps, and humid tropical conditions lead to greater gas production, particularly methane, at landfills.

As methane has a global warming potential 72 times greater than carbon dioxide, composting food scraps is an important mitigation activity. Compost can also help reconstitute degraded soil, thus boosting local agriculture.

Pamela Thomas, who heads the Caribbean Farmers Network (CaFAN), said her organisation recently received approval for climate smart agriculture projects funded by GEF.

“So we intend to do agriculture in a smart way. By that I mean protected agriculture where we are going to protect the plants from the direct rays of the sun,” Thomas, who also serves as Caribbean civil society ambassador on agriculture for the United Nations, told IPS.

“Also, we are going to be harvesting water…and we are going to use solar energy pumps to pump that water to the greenhouse for irrigation.”

CaFAN represents farmers in all 15 Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries. Initiated by farmer organisations across the Caribbean in 2002, it is mandated to speak on behalf of its membership and to develop programmes and projects aimed at improving livelihoods; and to collaborate with all stakeholders in the agriculture sector to the strategic advantage of its farmers.

“If a nation cannot feed itself, what will become of us?” argued Thomas, who said she wants to see more farmers moving away from the use of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides and begin to look towards organic agriculture.

Antigua and Barbuda led the Caribbean in 2013 as the biggest per capita food importer at 1,170 dollars, followed by Barbados at 1,126 dollars, the Bahamas at 1,106 dollars and St. Lucia at 969 dollars.

Besides the budget expense, import dependency is a source of vulnerability because severe hurricanes can interrupt shipments. As such, agriculture is an important area of funding for the GEF SGP.

GEF Chief Executive Officer Dr. Naoko Ishii, who met with the Caribbean delegation during the United Nations Conference on Small Islands Developing States held in Apia, Samoa from Sep. 1-4, had high praise for the community groups in the region.

“I was quite impressed by their determination to fight against climate change and other challenges,” Ishii told IPS. “I was also very much excited and impressed by them taking a more integrated approach than any other part of the world.”

The GEF Caribbean Constituency comprises Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname.

Ishii was also “quite excited” about the participation of eight countries in the Caribbean Challenge Initiative, a large-scale project spurred on by the Nature Conservancy, which has invested 20 million dollars in return for a commitment from Caribbean countries to support and manage new and existing protected areas.

Member countries must protect 20 percent of their marine and coastal habitats by 2020. The Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Saint-Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint-Lucia, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda as well as Saint-Kitts and Nevis are already involved in the project.

Ishii said that a number of countries involved in the Caribbean Challenge have been granted GEF funds and there are four GEF projects supporting the Caribbean Challenge.

These are durable funding and management of marine ecosystems in five countries belonging to the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS); building a sustainable national marine protected area network for the Bahamas; rethinking the national marine protected area system to reach financial sustainability in the Dominican Republic; and strengthening the operational and financial sustainability of the national protected area system in Jamaica.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at destinydlb@gmail.com

Climate Change Brings Opportunities for Caribbean Entrepreneurs

By Desmond Brown
HODGES BAY, Antigua, Oct 6 2014 (IPS)

Ruth Spencer, a solar energy pioneer in Antigua and Barbuda, says small non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have a crucial role to play in “the big projects” aimed at tackling the problems caused by the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas.

Ruth Spencer is a pioneer in the field of solar energy. She promotes renewable technologies to communities throughout her homeland of Antigua and Barbuda, playing a small but important part in helping the country achieve its goal of a 20-percent reduction in the use of fossil fuels by 2020.

She also believes that small non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have a crucial role to play in the bigger projects aimed at tackling the problems caused by the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas.“We are in a small island so we have to build synergies, we have to network, we have to partner to assist each other." -- Ruth Spencer

Spencer, who serves as National Focal Point for the Global Environment Facility (GEF)-Small Grants Programme (SGP) in Antigua and Barbuda, has been at the forefront of an initiative to bring representatives of civil society, business owners and NGOs together to educate them about the dangers posed by climate change.

“The GEF/SGP is going to be the delivery mechanism to get to the communities, preparing them well in advance for what is to come,” she told IPS.

The GEF Small Grants Programme in the Eastern Caribbean is administered by the United Nations office in Barbados.

“Since climate change is heavily impacting the twin islands of Antigua and Barbuda, it is important that we bring all the stakeholders together,” said Spencer, a Yale development economist who also coordinates the East Caribbean Marine Managed Areas Network funded by the German government.

“The coastal developments are very much at risk and we wanted to share the findings of the IPCC report with them to let them see for themselves what all these scientists are saying,” Spencer told IPS.

“We are in a small island so we have to build synergies, we have to network, we have to partner to assist each other. By providing the information, they can be aware and we are going to continue doing follow up….so together we can tackle the problem in a holistic manner,” she added.

Power lines in Antigua. The Caribbean country is taking steps to achieve energy security through clean technologies. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has sent governments a final draft of its synthesis report, which paints a harsh picture of what is causing global warming and what it will do to humans and the environment. It also describes what can be done about it.

Ruleta Camacho, project coordinator for the sustainable island resource management mechanism within Antigua and Barbuda’s Ministry of the Environment, told IPS there is documented observation of sea level rise which has resulted in coastal erosion and infrastructure destruction on the coastline.

She said there is also evidence of ocean acidification and coral bleaching, an increase in the prevalence of extreme weather events – extreme drought conditions and extreme rainfall events – all of which affect the country’s vital tourism industry.

“The drought and the rainfall events have impacts on the tourism sector because it impacts the ancillary services – the drought affects your productivity of local food products as well as your supply of water to the hotel industry,” she said.

“And then you have the rainfall events impacting the flooding so you have days where you cannot access certain sites and you have flood conditions which affect not only the hotels in terms of the guests but it also affects the staff that work at the hotels. If we get a direct hit from a storm we have significant instant dropoff in the productivity levels in the hotel sector.”

Antigua and Barbuda, which is known for its sandy beaches and luxurious resorts, draws nearly one million visitors each year. Tourism accounts for 60 to 75 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, and employs nearly 90 percent of the population.

Like Camacho, Ediniz Norde, an environment officer, believes sea level rise is likely to worsen existing environmental stresses such as a scarcity of freshwater for drinking and other uses.

“Many years ago in St. John’s we had seawater intrusion all the way up to Tanner Street. It cut the street in half. It used to be a whole street and now there is a big gutter running through it, a ship was lodged in Tanner Street,” she recalled.

“Now it only shows if we have these levels of sea water rising that this is going to be a reality here in Antigua and Barbuda,” Norde told IPS. “This is how far the water can get and this is how much of our environment, of our earth space that we can lose in St. John’s. It’s a reality that we won’t be able to shy away from if we don’t act now.”

As the earth’s climate continues to warm, rainfall in Antigua and Barbuda is projected to decrease, and winds and rainfall associated with episodic hurricanes are projected to become more intense. Scientists say these changes would likely amplify the impact of sea level rise on the islands.

But Camacho said climate change presents opportunities for Antigua and Barbuda and the country must do its part to implement mitigation measures.

She explained that early moves towards mitigation and building renewable energy infrastructure can bring long-term economic benefits.

“If we retrain our population early enough in terms of our technical expertise and getting into the renewable market, we can actually lead the way in the Caribbean and we can offer services to other Caribbean countries and that’s a positive economic step,” she said.

“Additionally, the quicker we get into the renewable market, the lower our energy cost will be and if we can get our energy costs down, it opens us for economic productivity in other sectors, not just tourism.

“If we can get our electricity costs down we can have financial resources that would have gone toward your electricity bills freed up for improvement of the [tourism] industry and you can have a better product being offered,” she added.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at destinydlb@gmail.com

Gerald Price sees a bleak future for Barbuda's fishermen under the Blue Halo initiative. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
CODRINGTON, Barbuda, Sep 16 2014 (IPS)

Local fishermen are singing the blues over a sweeping set of new ocean management regulations, signed into law by the Barbuda Council, to zone their coastal waters, strengthen fisheries management, and establish a network of marine sanctuaries.

Director of the Barbuda Research Complex John Mussington has criticised the Blue Halo initiative, not for its laudable goals, but because he believes it needs a more inclusive approach that takes into account climate change and offers fishermen an alternative.“I have been in places where there is no management, like Jamaica where I spent several years, and I can say from firsthand experience that the fishers there are extraordinarily poor and they are poor because fishing has been so badly managed that there is nothing left to catch.” -- Dr. Nancy Knowlton

“I don’t think you are going to get the cooperation of the Barbuda fishermen,” he cautioned.

“I have been involved directly in conservation efforts in Barbuda since 1983, even more so from 1991, where every single project related to conservation of the resources, particularly related to fishing, I have been involved in, so when I speak concerning this matter I am speaking on that basis,” Mussington told IPS.

The regulations establish five marine sanctuaries, collectively protecting 33 percent (139 km2) of the coastal area, to enable fish populations to rebuild and habitats to recover.

To restore the coral reefs, catching parrotfish and sea urchins has been completely prohibited, as those herbivores are critical to keeping algae levels on reefs low so coral can thrive. Barbuda is the first Caribbean island to put either of these bold and important measures in place.

But Mussington said the regulations and the initiatives which have been signed onto are not likely to work for three reasons.

“One, the science on which the initiative is based is poor and once you have poor science to start off with you cannot expect to get good results,” he said.

“The second reason why it will be challenged has to do with the local government administration which has a track record of not adhering to regulations and a lack of will and capacity with respect to enforcing regulations.

“The third issue on which this initiative is going to likely fail has to do with the engagement of stakeholders. You cannot come into a community and basically engage stakeholders in a manner which essentially results in division and sidelining of persons. Things have not worked that way,” Mussington added.

Chair of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC, Dr. Nancy Knowlton, disagrees. She cited a recent major report based on 90 different locations around the Caribbean which clearly shows that in places where fishing is properly managed, reefs are much healthier.

“In many of these places a big part of alternative livelihoods is in fact ocean-related tourism, and in order for that to take hold you need to have a healthy ecosystem, so I am much more optimistic about the chances for the Blue Halo to be a kind of flagship for the successful management of reefs in the Caribbean,” she told IPS.

“I have been in places where there is no management, like Jamaica where I spent several years, and I can say from firsthand experience that the fishers there are extraordinarily poor and they are poor because fishing has been so badly managed that there is nothing left to catch.”

The report, which synthesised a three-year study by 90 international experts and was issued by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), had a spot of surprisingly good news.

According to the authors, restoring parrotfish populations and improving other management strategies, such as protection from overfishing and excessive coastal pollution, can help reefs recover and even make them more resilient to future climate change impacts.

The study also shows that some of the healthiest Caribbean coral reefs are those that harbour vigorous populations of grazing parrotfish.

These include the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary in the northern Gulf of Mexico, Bermuda and Bonaire, “all of which have restricted or banned fishing practices that harm parrotfish, such as fish traps and spearfishing”.

The study is urging other countries to follow suit.

Still, according to the former president of the Antigua and Barbuda Fisherman’s Cooperative, Gerald Price, the future looks “very bleak” for Barbudan fishermen under Blue Halo.

He said the last time he checked the statistics for Barbuda, there were about 43 active fishing vessels, and each one may have three to four fishermen aboard. “What are they going to do and how are they going to make a living?” Price wondered.

“Barbuda is slightly different from Antigua in that in Antigua, our fishermen usually have an alternative. They are either a carpenter or a mason or they get work at a hotel. In Barbuda, as we understand it, they are 100 percent dependent on fishing. It’s going to be bleak, very bleak.”

Creation of the new regulations on Barbuda occurred under the umbrella of the Barbuda Blue Halo Initiative, a collaboration among the Barbuda Council, Government of Antigua & Barbuda, Barbuda Fisheries Division, Codrington Lagoon Park, and the Waitt Institute. The Waitt Institute provided all of the science, mapping, and communications, offered policy recommendations, and coordinated the overall Initiative.

“I enthusiastically applaud the measures put in place in Barbuda, particularly the protection of parrotfish and sea urchins. Protection of these vitally important herbivores is the essential first step toward the recovery of Caribbean reefs from the severe degradation they have undergone in the last 50 years,” said Jeremy Jackson, director of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN) at the International Union of the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Also included in the regulations is a two-year fishing hiatus for Codrington Lagoon, the primary nursery ground for the lobster and finfish fisheries. The lagoon, a Ramsar wetland of international importance, is one the Caribbean’s most extensive and intact mangrove ecosystems, and home to the world’s largest breeding colony of magnificent frigate birds.

But Mussington said having the Codrington Lagoon declared as a sanctuary zone will backfire.

“The cultural significance of that lagoon, the resources which are there and the history on which it is based in terms of providing livelihood and food security for Barbudans — you would understand that making such a declaration is counterproductive,” he said.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at destinydlb@gmail.com

The Petrotrin Oil Refinery in Trinidad and Tobago which has significant, proven fossil fuel reserves. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
ST. JOHN’S, Antigua, Jul 28 2014 (IPS)

Caught between its quest to grow the economy, create jobs and cut electricity costs, and the negative impacts associated with building an oil refinery, the Antigua and Barbuda government is looking to a mix of clean energy and fossil fuels to address its energy needs.

Venezuela’s ambassador to Antigua, Carlos Perez, announced last week that Caracas was at an advanced stage of negotiations with the government in St. John’s to build an oil refinery on the tiny 108-square-mile island.“No good can come from the oil refinery. The environmental concerns associated with the burning of fossil fuel in a country whose main industry is tourism are many." -- Chante Codrington

“The pending negotiations for the oil refinery I believe are well advanced and we’re hoping with this new administration of Prime Minister [Gaston] Browne we will advance to conclude that project that will be beneficial for Antigua and for Venezuela too,” Perez said.

Browne’s Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party won General Elections on Jun. 12 after 10 years in opposition.

Environmentalists, including Dominican Arthurton Martin, oppose the move and say it’s the worst possible time to make an announcement like this.

“The United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just released its 2014 report presenting evidence that not only can we expect a two degree centigrade rise in global temperatures but [possibly] a four degree centigrade rise, which will result in significant increases in coastal damage from sea level rise for countries like Antigua that are relatively flat,” Martin told IPS.

“This will in fact result in significant extension of periods of drought as a result of fluctuations in temperature. This is also happening at a time when there are so many options that could deal with part of the energy challenge,” he added.

Martin said the refinery was a bad choice not only because of the global movement to avert catastrophic climate change, but because cleaner alternatives are readily available.

He suggested instead that government look into sources like biofuel, solar and wind energy to reduce reliance on crude oil. These sources of energy have already been developed and financing exists to explore these options.

“These technologies are off the shelf. You can purchase them right now. You don’t even have to do R&D to develop them,” he said.

“This is the first time in the history of the international financial community that they have in fact made grants and concessionary loan financing available to actually reduce the dependence on fossil fuel for energy.”

Environmentalists stress that oil refineries are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants.

Oil refineries also emit methane and nitrous oxide, which are more potent greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide, as well as several other air contaminants that pose risks to human health and the environment such as hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and volatile organic compounds.

Chante Codrington, director of Wadadli Industrial Renewable Energy Ltd, who is in negotiations with the government of Antigua and Barbuda to build a wind farm here, is of the view that wind energy is the most efficient and affordable energy source for the island.

“No good can come from the oil refinery. The environmental concerns associated with the burning of fossil fuel in a country whose main industry is tourism are many,” he told IPS.

“There is an odor that comes from the oil refinery, air pollution, water contamination concerns, fire, explosions, noise pollution, health effects – these are all the disadvantages.”

Clean energy advocate John Burke agrees with Codrington, telling IPS it would benefit the island’s poor more if the country goes green.

“The price of oil is going to go up. The last time I heard the price of sun and wind had not gone up. Currently, every kilowatt hour we’re generating we’re spending about 80 or 90 cents EC on fuel. If they put together a programme to finance and install solar systems for the poor and the middle class that would in effect be financed by the amount of money we save from importing oil.”

According to a report by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), energy demand in the region is expected to double in the next 20 years, at a 3.7 per cent average annual rate of increase.

Currently, most Caribbean countries are heavily reliant on imported fossil fuels, their energy consumption being based almost solely on oil products, which account for more than 97 per cent of the energy mix.

Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Barbados cover part of their fuel requirements from their own reserves of oil and natural gas. Nevertheless, only Trinidad and Tobago has significant, proven fossil fuel reserves.

Several Caribbean countries spend 15 to 30 percent of their export earnings, inclusive of revenues from tourism, on oil products. This results in electricity prices of between 20 and 35 cents per kWh, much higher than in the United States or Europe.

Peter Lewis, managing director of the Bermuda-based Carib Energy Solutions, said the government should consider the environmental factors associated with an oil refinery.

“If the global trend of a mixed-bag approach is the best option for the pursuit of an energy agenda…you would be able to attract more entrepreneurs to the business sector and get the economy going,” he told IPS.

Martin also agrees with the mixed-bag approach.

“No single source of power should be allowed to deal with your entire energy bill. That is a bad thing to do,” he said.

“We had our banana experience in Dominica when we placed all our bets on one crop. My advice is no country should place all its bets on any one source of power. Even Venezuela is understanding that right now.

“So if solar can contribute three per cent, if wind can give you 15 per cent, if biomass conversion can give you 20 per cent, what you are doing is effectively reducing your dependence on the dirtiest form of energy which is fossil fuel driven energy,” Martin added.

In early 2007, the government of Dominica announced plans for Venezuela to construct an oil refinery on the island but after a barrage of objections was raised by environmentalists, plans for the plant were placed on hold in 2008.

Editing by: Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at destinydlb@gmail.com

Marine biologist and environmentalist John Mussington (left) and New York-based archaeologist Dr. Sophia Perdikaris. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
CODRINGTON, Barbuda, Jun 30 2014 (IPS)

The 1,800 residents of the tiny Caribbean island of Barbuda are learning to adapt as climate change proves to be a force to reckon with, disrupting not just the lives of the living but also the resting places of those who died centuries ago. 

United States-based archaeologist Dr. Sophia Perdikaris said when Hurricane Georges hit in 1998, it did a lot more than turn the spotlight on the island’s shrinking coastline."One of the sure things that will happen as a result of climate change is that one-third wetlands will engulf the one-third lowland...so that will leave us with 21 square miles of usable land." -- John Mussington

“In the early years when I first started coming to Barbuda, it was because hurricane activity had exposed a lot of archaeology and it was an effort to do rescue. A human skeleton from 450 AD was exposed in the area called Seaview,” Perdikaris told IPS.

“In fact, some of the archaeology [including the human skeleton] that we are now housing in the newly formed museum was excavated by Hurricane Georges.”

Perdikaris, a professor of anthropology and archaeology at the City University of New York, Brooklyn College, said some of the findings coming out of Barbuda point to climatic shifts in weather conditions at the same time that the northern part of Europe was experiencing the little Ice Age.

“Similar signatures are coming out of Barbuda that actually have the same stories in Greenland, Iceland and the North Coast of Africa,” she said. “Hence, Barbuda is not just a small island in the Caribbean but actually a major part of bigger weather events in the circum Atlantic.”

Perdikaris said one of the things that Barbudans are faced with today is “a big word, climate change – what does it really mean and how is it affecting people’s lives and what can they do to change it?”

But she noted that the residents are very adaptive.

“We do find solutions with the help of the amazing expertise of the local people because they are the best experts for their local environment,” she said.

“We are trying to gather enough information to see what our challenges are and how we move forward; and then find the funding resources and technology to make that happen.

“We are monitoring erosion in many parts of the island and we also have been testing the wells to see whether the water is safe to drink or whether the salinity has been changing; all of these efforts in order to assess the three aquifers that are under Barbuda,” she added.

Another project being developed on the island is aquaponics, the combination of aquaculture and hydroponics (growing plants without soil), amid a growing realisation that climate change will likely seriously threaten food security in Barbuda.

“There are diminishing resources in the sea. It is problematic to grow crops if you have a drought or if you only have salty water to water them so we have developed an aquaponics facility,” said Perdikaris.

Dr. Perdikaris said climate change has forced the residents of the island with a single village to make changes to their way of life and also to put measures in place to secure their future.

“As glaciers melt because of high temperatures what it’s doing to the rest of us is actually increase the sea level, and by increasing the sea level a number of things are taking place,” she said. “With a low-lying island like Barbuda, one of our main concerns is how much of the island, how fast, will actually be under water.

“As the sea waters are rising, they are not only claiming land but they are actually claiming the coral reefs,” Perdikaris added.

Marine biologist and environmentalist John Mussington said the warning by scientists that the 62-square-mile [161-square-kilometre] island is becoming one of the most vulnerable spots due to the consequences of climate change is not being taken lightly.

“Barbuda is flat; the highest point is just over 100 feet. Now with climate change predictions they are talking about several metres in terms of sea level rise. When you look at the present topography of Barbuda, it is 62 square miles. A third of Barbuda is taken up by lagoons and wetland systems.

“Another third is what we call the lowlands. One of the sure things that will happen as a result of climate change is that one-third wetlands will engulf the one-third lowland to become two-thirds wetlands,” Mussington told IPS.

“So that will leave us with 21 square miles of usable land for sustaining communities. That is the reality we are facing.”

Barbuda’s culture is firmly based in a “living off the land concept” that Mussington said is fast becoming a thing of the past with the advent of climate change.

“We want to sustain the fact that Barbuda has a tradition of its people living off the land and one of the things we are going to face in terms of challenges from climate change is we are not going to be able to do that,” he said.

“If we are going to survive we have to overcome those challenges, hence the direction we are taking in terms of being able to continue to feed ourselves protein wise and vegetable wise.”

The entire population is being educated in aquaponics technology, a method of growing crops and fish together in a re-circulating system.

“We had a dream in 2012 of actually helping the situation in Barbuda by being able to guarantee that we can continue to get our protein source in the form of fish as well as to produce vegetables in spite of what was going to happen and what is happening from climate change,” Mussington said.

“In the aquaponics technology that we are pioneering we now house in our tanks 4500 tilapia.

“We have to find solutions in order to continue living on the island. That is why aquaponics turned out to be one of those things that we are pushing because the end result of the climate change consequences is that our coral reefs are going to suffer, our beaches are going to be shifting and changing,” Mussington added.

By Desmond Brown
Jun 26 2014 (IPS)

Caribbean scientists are developing drought-tolerant varieties of crops which are then distributed to farmers in countries most severely affected by climate change. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
ST. JOHN'S, Antigua, Jun 26 2014 (IPS)

The Caribbean region’s bid to become food secure is in peril as farmers struggle to produce staple crops under harsh drought conditions brought about by climate change.

But scientists are fighting back, developing drought-tolerant varieties which are then distributed to farmers in those countries most severely affected.

“We are mainly affected by issues of drought and…CARDI has been looking at methods of sustainable management of production using drought tolerant varieties. We are working with certain commodities and doing applied research aimed at producing them in the dry season,” Dr. Gregory Robin, CARDI representative and technical coordinator for the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), told IPS.

“We’re starting first with the crops that are more significantly affected by drought. We take, for example, dasheen, which is a crop that requires a lot of moisture and I’m working with that crop in St. Vincent and St. Lucia,” he said.

“Validation will serve Jamaica, Grenada, Dominican Republic – all the islands that produce dasheen. Sometimes it’s not cost-effective to do activities in all the islands so some of the sweet potato work done here can be used in St. Kitts, Barbados and islands with similar agro-ecological zones and rainfall patterns,” he added.

The Trinidad-based CARDI (Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute), which has worked to strengthen the agricultural sector of member countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) for more than 30 years, is at the forefront of the research.

“CARDI has a body of professionals around the region so if we have any issues of climate change and drought, CARDI is a body of scientists that is available to all the islands of the CARICOM region,” Robin said.

Another crop being given special attention is sweet potato. Robin explained that for the Caribbean region, sweet potato is very important as a food security staple and foreign exchange earner.

“We’re working with the crops that we think are going to be affected most. Sweet potato can take a certain amount of moisture stress but dasheen and crops that require a high level of moisture are not going to be standing up so well to moisture stress, so we are starting with those with a high requirement of moisture first,” he said.

Noting that irrigation is key to productivity, the CARDI official explained that, “I have been working here for the past seven years and it’s the first time I’ve seen it so dry and it’s highlighting the point that we need to look at our rainwater harvesting systems.”

Climate change has also forced Guyana, considered the bread-basket of the Caribbean, to develop new varieties.

“We have also been growing different varieties of crops that are resistant to salt water because one of the impacts of climate change is that the salt water will creep more into the inland areas and so we are looking at salt-resistant rice for example; looking at crops that are much more resilient to dry weather and that can withstand periods of flooding,” Agriculture Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy told IPS.

“We’ve been doing things like shade technology, drip irrigation, using technology and methods and utilising animals and crops that are far more resilient to extreme weather conditions.”

In addition to developing drought-tolerant varieties, CARDI is also actively developing new technologies to assist farmers with irrigation.

“I remember when I started in agriculture probably 20 years ago farmers used to irrigate using a drum and a bucket,” Bradbury Browne told IPS.

But he said over the years CARDI has introduced drip irrigation technology and other types of irrigation technology.

“For example if I want to apply 3,000 gallons of water to an acre of sweet potato I can programme [the irrigation system] so that I don’t have to be there physically to be turning on a hose or a pipe and there would be no issue of flooding if I am called away on an emergency,” said Browne, who now serves as a field technician at CARDI.

Meanwhile, longtime legislator in Antigua and Barbuda Baldwin Spencer noted that more frequent and extreme droughts are expected to become a feature of Caribbean weather.

And he said the impact of such drought conditions will increase heat stress, particularly for the more vulnerable, such as the elderly.

“Despite the decline in the production and export of major agricultural commodities from the OECS, agriculture remains an important sector in the economic and social development of the region from the stand-point of food security, rural stability and the provision of input to other productive sectors,” said Spencer, who served as prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda from March 2004 until Jun. 12 this year.

“These benefits are at risk from climatic events and this risk only increases as the climate continues to change,” he said.

Experts project that decreased production levels of major crops combined with increasing food demand will pose large risks to all aspects of food security globally and regionally including food access, utilisation and price stability.

The World Bank said food security is consistently seen as one of the key challenges for the coming decades and by the year 2050, the world will need to produce enough food to feed more than 2.0 billion additional people, compared to the current 7.2 billion.

It said most of the population growth will be concentrated in developing countries, adding pressure to their development needs.

The World Bank added that to meet future food demand, agricultural production will need to increase by 50-70 percent, according to different estimates. And this will happen as the impacts of climate change are projected to intensify overall, particularly hitting the poorest and most vulnerable countries.

A section of the Green Bay Primary School in Dominica damaged by Hurricane Tomas in 2010. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
ST. JOHN’S, Antigua, May 21 2014 (IPS)

Climate change is forcing the nine-member Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) to choose between expending scarce resources to deal with its impact or other pressing development goals.

“There is a very thin line between consumption and conservation…progress and protection,” Grenada’s Environment Minister Roland Bhola told IPS. He explained that countries still have to fulfil the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which include reducing poverty and hunger, while dealing with the impacts of climate change.

But there is a flicker of hope for these countries. The European Union (EU) has signed a financial agreement for 39.5 million East Caribbean dollars for a project designed to improve the sub-region’s natural resource base and its resilience to impacts of climate change.“There is no doubt that on the whole the impacts of climate change on small islands will have serious negative effects especially on socio-economic conditions and bio physical resources including the land.” -- Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer

The OECS consists of the islands of Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts-Nevis, Montserrat, Anguilla and the British Virgin islands.

Head of the EU delegation to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, ambassador Mikael Barford, has acknowledged that this is a “very vulnerable region” and that the project is a reflection of Europe’s commitment to support climate action in developing countries.

“The Caribbean is one of the most disaster-prone regions in the world but we tend to ignore the threat that could occur as a result of the impact of climate change…”

“On your doorsteps, scientists are warning that your 62-square-mile [161-square-kilometre] sister island of Barbuda is becoming one of the most vulnerable spots due to the consequences of climate change,” he told IPS.

“Already there is accelerated erosion taking place because of the rise in sea levels and it’s estimated that if this continues, a third of the island could be lost.”

Antigua and Barbuda, the only country in the OECS to have appointed an ambassador for climate change, has had more than six hurricanes of various intensity over the last 20 years.

Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador Diann Black-Layne told IPS: “Climate change is impacting our country.”

She said that many small island developing states (SIDS), were suffering percentage losses of their GDPs because of the impact of climate change.

“We’ve had extreme weather, variation in rainfall, significant flooding and our waterways are not able to cope with the climate as we know it.

“Antigua and Barbuda is known as a dry weather country and so we design our homes, our roads and our lives around that reality. But today it’s getting worse and we experience flooding that Antiguans never knew or experienced before,” she added.

Black-Layne, who is also the chief environmental officer here, explained that the authorities have undertaken many initiatives in planning for climate change but did not have the funding for adaptation measures.

“Starting in 2016, just to get prepared to adapt to climate change, we will need to spend 40 to 50 million East Caribbean dollars a year,” she said.

“Political will is not what we lack here in Antigua and Barbuda. We lack financing and low cost financing which is something that we are now working on aggressively.”

Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister, Baldwin Spencer, who is the present chairman of OECS, boats of an outstanding record on recognising the importance and taking action on climate change.

But he said Antigua and other SIDS face challenges originating from their small size and economies, geographical location, limited infrastructure and high vulnerability to environmental disasters.

Spencer said these challenges are exacerbated by the projected impacts of global climate change coupled with increasing competition for limited resources, which combine to erode the ability of member states to meet their development aspirations on a sustainable basis.

“This reality was manifested between the evening of Dec. 24 and the morning of the Dec. 25, 2013 when severe rains and high winds impacted significantly on the islands of St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and to a lesser extent Dominica, resulting in dozens of lives lost,” Spencer told IPS.

The government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines declared a national level two disaster. In its rapid damage and loss assessment of Jan. 16, it reported total damages and losses of at least 279.3 million East Caribbean dollars, equivalent to 15 percent of the country’s GDP. Most of the damage sustained was in the infrastructure sector, placed at some 97 percent; followed by the social sector, three percent.

St. Lucia’s post disaster needs assessment estimated that the total impact on the economy was at 224.7 million East Caribbean dollars in damage and losses to physical assets.

“While this represents a moderate 6.3 percent of GDP, the severe infrastructure, environmental and social fallout, coupled with the cumulative effect from the recent 2010 battering by hurricane Tomas means that in reality the impact was significant,” Spencer said.

In its most recent fifth assessment report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated that it has long been recognised that greenhouse gas emissions from small islands are negligible in relation to global emissions but that the threats of climate change and rising sea levels are very real to small islands.

“There is no doubt that on the whole the impacts of climate change on small islands will have serious negative effects especially on socio-economic conditions and bio physical resources including the land,” Spencer said.

The number of hurricanes passing through the Caribbean has risen from about five percent in the early 20^th century to more than 25 in part of the 21^st century.

“One study prepared for the World Bank estimates the potential economic impact of such related climate change on CARICOM [Caribbean Community] countries could be as much as 10 billion dollars,” he said.

The EU funding is being made available through its Global Climate Change Alliance  (GCCA) project.

In the Caribbean, the GCCA is active in Jamaica, Belize, and Guyana as well as within the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre.

Barford hopes the project will strengthen the bonds between the EU and the OECS countries in the joint efforts in international climate change negotiations.

“There is clear evidence that climate change is having an effect on the region,” Barford pointed out. He said that only recently, two OECS member states, St. Lucia as well as St. Vincent and the Grenadines, signalled that they had severe water problems.

Some small famers in the Caribbean have come together to build their own catchments to harvest rainwater for crops and livestock. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
HIGHLANDS, Barbuda, Feb 28 2014 (IPS)

Water rationing has become a way of life for the 1,800 residents of the tiny island of Barbuda, which has been experiencing prolonged dry periods, especially in the Highlands area near the main agricultural lands.

Marine biologist John Mussington told IPS the problem is that the wet period has shifted from the traditional July to September period to September to November, and when the rains do come, the showers are sharp and end just as quickly.An artificial rainwater catchment is one adaptation option that can reduce the threat of drought.

“Without areas to store the water when it comes, it runs off into the sea or penetrates underground,” Mussington told IPS. “The other problem is that the groundwater is ‘hard’ due to high levels of calcium and magnesium, and in many cases salty due to saltwater intrusion.

“This groundwater is not suitable for agriculture and because the wet season has shifted, the traditional method of planting crops at particular times so that they can be rain-fed is not as effective,” Mussington added.

The director of the Antigua and Barbuda Meteorological Services, Keithley Meade, said that climate change poses the greatest threat to Barbuda and the rest of the Caribbean region.

“If you look at what happened in the southern islands in December…climate change is impacting us,” Meade told IPS.

A slow-moving, low-level trough on Dec. 24 dumped hundreds of millimetres of rain on St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia and Dominica, killing at least 13 people.

“We find that our droughts are drier than normal and our wet seasons are wetter than normal,” Meade said.

Barbuda has been experiencing prolonged dry periods, especially in the Highlands area near the main agricultural lands. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

As the conditions worsen, the state-owned Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA) has been urging residents to practice water conservation, with several public service announcements (PSAs) airing on radio and television.

“No rainfall is expected within this period. We have been getting some drizzle, but not the gut showers that are needed,” water manager Ivan Rodriques told IPS.

On average, Antigua and Barbuda requires 5.6 million gallons of water per day, increasing to six million gallons during the peak tourism season.

But there is a flicker of hope: the island is set to benefit from an artificial catchment area to trap rainwater.

The much needed help is thanks to the Reducing the Risks to Human and Natural Assets Resulting from Climate Change (RRACC) project, being implemented by the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Susanna Scott, coordinator of the RRACC project, told IPS the artificial catchment would be used “to demonstrate an adaptation option that can reduce the threats of drought and decreasing water availability on the agriculture sector.”

Mussington welcomes the plan to build a water catchment and storage area on the western edge of the Highlands to overcome some of the challenges being faced by the island.

“Incidentally, the concept and initial project design was my doing. By harvesting rainwater on the Highlands and storing the water, it can be used throughout the year to produce high value vegetable crops.

“By incorporating an aquaponics component, Barbuda could become self-sufficient in vegetables and also have the availability of fresh fish for local consumption and export in a more efficient production system,” he said.

Gaston Browne, who is seeking to oust Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer in general elections, constitutionally due here in March, has vowed to make Barbuda “the breadbasket” of the twin-island state.

But with forecasts for hotter and drier conditions going forward, Browne could find it difficult, if not impossible to realise his promise for the drought-stricken island.

Barbuda and mainland Antigua are not the only countries where drought, brought on by climate change, is wreaking havoc on agriculture and water resources.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)  scientists said last month was the warmest January since 2007 and the fourth warmest on record. It also marked the driest month for the contiguous United States since 2003 and the fifth driest since records started being kept in 1880.

On Feb. 24, while launching the United Nations (UN) International Year of Small Island Developing States, Antigua-born General Assembly President John Ashe said “this year takes place at a time when the vast majority of islands are combatting the ravages of climate change, and some, like the Maldives are literally sinking because of it.”

Ironically, predictions are that the tiny 62-square-mile island of Barbuda could sink in 60 years due to sea level rise.

“The challenges that small island developing states are facing are challenges that all countries should be concerned about,” the head of the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Wu Hongbo, said at the launch.

He noted that small islands are particularly vulnerable because of their unique locations. For example, the hurricane season has devastating impacts on lives and property, particularly in countries which see an increasing number of cycles and decreasing rainfall.

“Climate change represents a grave threat to the survival and viability of a number of low-lying nations,” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said in his address at the launch of the International Year.

To galvanise support for addressing climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mobilising political will, Ban will convene a Climate Summit on Sep. 23 in New York.

U.N. member states agreed two years ago to support 51 highly vulnerable Small Island Developing States (SIDS) – a group that was politically recognised at the Rio Summit in 1992, underscored at a major international conference in Barbados in 1994 and again at a follow-up meeting in Mauritius in 2005.

The group of states share similar sustainable development challenges, including small but growing populations, limited resources, remoteness, susceptibility to natural disasters, vulnerability to external shocks, excessive dependence on international trade, and fragile environments.

Oraine Halstead (left) and Rhys Actie tend tomatoes in a greenhouse at Colesome Farm at Jonas Road, Antigua. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
JONAS ROAD, Antigua , Feb 17 2014 (IPS)

Antigua is one of the most drought-prone countries in the Caribbean. So whenever it rains, the inhabitants generally regard the weather as “showers of blessing”.

But that is starting to change. Many farmers now see the rains as a curse and are now fighting an uphill battle to save their crops, vital for both the local and foreign markets.“The yield and lifespan [of crops in a greenhouse] basically are three times as much as open-field production." -- Delrie Cole

“We are a drought-prone country,” Ruleta Camacho, senior environmental officer in the ministry of agriculture, told IPS. “The issue now is that due to the impact of climate change, we are having exacerbated drought and exacerbated rainfall events.”

Heavy rainfall can damage crops and high humidity brings with it an infestation of pests and diseases, increasing the consumption of pesticides.

“We are having large amounts of rain in very short times. There are a number of communities that are affected by flood conditions, communities where the livelihoods of the population could be affected,” Camacho added.

One such community is Jonas Road where Delrie Cole has been farming for the last three years. But since Cole introduced greenhouse technology to his farm, he is no longer at the mercy of the rains.

With the greenhouses he is also able to grow his vegetables – cilantro, parsley, basil, peppers, eggplant, lettuce, pumpkins and tomatoes – during periods of drought or deluge.

“The need for the greenhouses came about because of climate change and a lack of production in the summer season when you have more stressful conditions,” he told IPS.

“Due to the changing climate we are having hotter summers and it’s a pretty difficult time when you have the plants being stressed and the fruits are falling from the trees.

“The greenhouse basically gives you that edge where you can better operate in terms of control, cutting down some of the humidity that you would have during the summer,” he explained.

Greenhouse farming, which is cultivation of plants inside a building with glass walls and roof under controlled conditions, has become necessary with climate change.

Temperature and humidity can be controlled, making it possible for farmers to grow crops year-round.

“The yield and lifespan basically are three times as much as open-field production,” said Cole, who has been a farmer for more than 30 years.

“We are doing crops which are running 12 months, so whereas you would have planted a field that is carrying us through 12 months, farmers in the open would have been planting three crops within that same length of time and their yield would be less.”

Farmers in Antigua stand to benefit from the Reducing the Risks to Human and Natural Assets Resulting from Climate Change (RRACC) project being implemented by the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

“The ministry of agriculture has identified the threat of heavy rainfall on cash crops such as lettuce and tomatoes,” Susanna Scott, coordinator of the RRACC project, told IPS.

“A lot of damage could result from intense rainfall, which is expected to increase with climate change and also in time of drought the impact of the dry weather on these crops is severe as well,” she said. “So what we are looking at doing is investing in greenhouses to provide a protective area for crop growing.”

Antigua’s main agricultural exports include cotton to Japan and fruits and vegetables to other Caribbean territories.

Hot peppers and vegetables are also exported to the United Kingdom and Canada. Other agriculture products are bananas, coconuts, cucumbers, mangoes, livestock and pineapples.

Agriculture is currently a rather insignificant part of the economy, making up just four percent of GDP. However, it appears that cultivation is on the rise, with approximately 300 acres of land planted with vegetables.

Antigua has also been campaigning to encourage more youth to get involved in agriculture and there is evidence of some success.

Oraine Halstead and Rhys Actie, who are both under the age of 25, are full-time farmers.

“As a boy growing up with my grandmother, she was involved in planting vegetables and I got a little knowledge of it and fell in love with it,” Actie, a national of St. Lucia who moved here at the age of nine years and is now 23, told IPS.

Halstead, who has been a farmer for two and half years, said farming is a very fulfilling career.

“I love to be around plants, taking care of them. It’s a joy to see them grow to maturity and the food they produce,” he told IPS.

In the wake of climate change, greenhouse farming is seen as the only way to protect crops and manage a better yield than in normal condition. Farming under controlled condition protects crops from wind, rain, sun and precipitation.

The advantages of vegetable production in tropical greenhouses include higher yield and quality; reduced risks for quality and yield; less susceptibility to disease and damage caused by heavy rainfall; extended harvest time; reduced water consumption; and better use of fertiliser and pesticides.

“People are more keen as to what they consume and where it’s coming from. We are doing vine ripening so the flavour is good. Consumers are knocking on our doors because of the quality and the taste of our tomatoes,” Cole told IPS.

St. Vincent Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves (centre) chairs a meeting to discuss reconstruction following deadly floods on Dec. 24. At left is his Antiguan counterpart, Baldwin Spencer. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, Dec 30 2013 (IPS)

Ralph Gonsalves fought to hold back tears as he shared how his cousin was killed the night before Christmas.

Raymond Gonsalves was buried alive when a slow-moving, low-level trough dumped more than 400 mm of rain on this island in a less than 24 hours and triggered massive flooding and huge landslides.

“People have lost their lives; families are suffering. I was with a family which lost five in one household,” Gonsalves, the prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, told IPS.

His cousin Raymond, he recounted, “was in his house, in the bedroom, and a landslide came down and buried him on his bed.”

“I have it in my family too,” he said. “I feel the pain, I feel the anguish of people.”"Climate change...has to be given the prominence and the priority that it deserves."
--Baldwin Spencer, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda

Gonsalves told IPS that St. Vincent and the Grenadines is “on the frontline of climate change”, explaining that his cousin had been among several the government moved from their homes beside the sea following Hurricane Ivan in 2004.

New houses were built for them but even then “the ravages of wave action were too severe, so we moved them to [another] place.” They had been moved, he said, “from one disaster point to another.”

The prime minister said that while the country is not a disaster area as a whole, several areas have been declared disaster areas.

Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer of Antigua and Barbuda, who serves as chairman of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), a sub-regional grouping, arrived here on Saturday to see the destruction first-hand. He will also visit St. Lucia on Sunday.

A deadly event

The trough on Dec. 24 brought torrential rains, death and destruction not only to St. Vincent and the Grenadines but to St. Lucia and Dominica as well. Disaster officials in St. Vincent have so far recovered nine bodies, and the search continues for three more people reported missing and feared dead.

In St. Lucia, five people were killed, including Calvin Stanley Louis, a police officer, who died after a wall fell on him as he tried to help people stranded by floods.

Spencer told IPS he is convinced that there is a link between climate change, global warming and the erratic weather being experienced in the region.

“What has happened in these three member states of the OECS clearly demonstrates that the issue of climate change and associated weather issues can no longer be treated as a backburner issue,” he told IPS. “It…has to be a front burner issue and has to be addressed collectively.”

“I would say that this has to jolt all of us into the recognition that climate change is not something that we can continue to take lightly. It has to be given the prominence and the priority that it deserves.”

He hastened to point out that climate change has not skipped the attention of governments of the OECS.

“Policies and programmes have been developed in conjunction with regional and international bodies involved with this process to introduce…practicable measures,” he said. “But these devastating situations would urge us…to move more expeditiously in putting into place whatever is required to assist in combating the effects of climate change.”

Ronald Jackson, the executive director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), said he could not give a scientific answer connecting climate change and the Christmas Eve storm, but he strongly believed climate variability issues and climate change issues were involved.

“There is going to be a change in the culture of how we deal with these things, how we monitor the meteorological information that is being presented because we are living in very uncertain times,” he said.

A boy clears debris from his home in St. Vincent following flooding Dec. 24. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Serious damage

Gonsalves said that during a helicopter overview of the country’s forests, the minister of works and chief engineer observed massive landslides, rivers that had spread, and land that had been denuded.

“The extent of landslides suggests the figure of about 10 percent, which is a huge number,” he told IPS, adding that the practical implications of the landsides are huge as well. “If we are seeing these logs in the lower end of the river, you could imagine the damage which is caused in the upper end. If the logs are not cleared and if we don’t deal properly with river defences, we have a time bomb” where the next heavy rains will simply add to the buildup.

The capacity of the state to respond to a disaster of this magnitude it is not at the level it ought to be, Gonsalves added.

“There are profound limitations. In the ministry of social development, we just don’t have enough persons in that area to deal with the extent of the social problems which have arisen,” he told IPS.

Two decisions regarding immediate reconstruction were reached during a six-hour meeting at the prime minister’s office Saturday. They involved financial institutions, contractors, local and regional disaster management agencies, representatives of CARICOM, and the governments of Antigua, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.

The prime minister said all financial institutions have indicated that they will try to help provide the financing for the work to be done.

The island’s water authority has said that by Tuesday, the country should be up from what is now 50 percent of the population with access to water to 85 percent.

“The issue of the water is the most critical, immediate human need,” Gonsalves said. Even the country’s 42 water trucks “are still not enough to deal with the problem.”

“We will work to make our country better than it is and to use this challenging period to lift ourselves and to carry ourselves to higher heights,” Gonsalves concluded.

Beach erosion in Antigua. Chief Environment Officer Diann Black-Layne said even beaches without construction are eroding. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
WARSAW, Nov 20 2013 (IPS)

Diann Black-Layne grew up in a single parent home with nine siblings on the tiny Caribbean island of Antigua. Still, life was easygoing and enjoyable, she recalls. For her, it was paradise.

But paradise was lost in 1979 when Hurricane David, at that time considered the strongest storm ever to hit the Caribbean, came roaring in, followed 10 years later by Hurricane Hugo."Hurricane Luis hit in 1995 and it sat on the island for two days and it destroyed 90 percent of the homes, and just thinking about it I get goose pimples." -- Diann Black-Layne

Since 1995, Antigua and Barbuda has withstood the fury of five more hurricanes.

“My mom, who is more than 20 years my senior, experienced only one hurricane, and I have experienced nine,” Black-Layne told IPS.

Black-Layne is now the chief environment officer and her country’s ambassador for climate change. She longs for the paradise in which she grew up, but acknowledges that the era of her childhood is likely gone forever.

“The beaches are now eroding, even beaches without any construction on them. We have salt water intrusion. It’s getting hotter and farmers are struggling more to produce so it’s very different now,” she said.

Antigua and Barbuda has a combined population of 89,000 and while most people are aware that something is happening with the climate, for the majority, the two-week United Nations Climate Change Conference at the national stadium in Poland is just another talk-shop.

“They are just trying to focus on ensuring that their homes are ready in the event of a storm and that’s all they are focusing on right now, making sure that they have enough money to pay their home insurance which can be like 10-20 percent of your monthly mortgage payments,” Black-Layne said.

“I understand what is happening and that is the reason why I leave my three kids and my husband to come here,” she added.

She is very clear about what she wants to achieve out of these negotiations, not just for Antigua and Barbuda, but for the other small developing states of the Caribbean region.

“Antigua is already paying for adaptation and it’s costing us a lot of money. We are saying that what a U.S. citizen or an EU citizen pays for adaptation, we should be on the same level. Our interest rates are much higher, two [to] three times than what an American would pay,” she said.

“We need access to capital at the same rate they get access to capital. That would ease the strain significantly and that is possible. That is what we are negotiating now under the convention. That is the key.”

Denis Antoine, Grenada’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations, told IPS that the Caribbean delegation is approaching the negotiations with “a united front” and the issues for the region are capacity building, financing for development, mitigation and adaptation.

He emphasised the need for financing for climate change and for the developed countries meet their commitment to ensure that the small island developing states are afforded the opportunity to develop their economies.

“The greenhouse gas is not spilled by us. We are not the perpetrators but we are called upon to spend our own local funds so our case is that it is double jeopardy,” Antoine told IPS.

“We would like to take away a higher ambition on the part of the developed countries to maintain their pledge and to ensure that we do not roll back from the position that we have had coming into this COP meeting. We are here to ensure that we do not lose ground.”

John Ashe, the president of the U.N. General Assembly and a fellow Antiguan, told the opening of the first High-level Segment of COP 19 on Tuesday that the picture was “bleak”.

“And if we use the same arguments, the same stalling tactics, that picture will only get bleaker,” he said, pleading with the parties to ensure that a deal is reached in 2015 and that it “be comprehensive and of necessity bind us all. To avoid the usual last minute dash where we leave everything to that magical twelfth hour, I urge you to begin serious considerations right here, right now in Warsaw.

“We have now entered the era of super storms, and the human tragedies and ravages such storms and typhoons bring are part of our daily vernacular,” Ashe added. “However, we in this room must never ever become inured to this.”

But mere hours after Ashe’s call, the Group of 77 developing countries and China walked out of negotiations on loss and damage at 3:55 am (Warsaw time) on Wednesday over the draft negotiating text seen as insufficient in meeting the needs of developing and vulnerable countries.

“As the Philippines continues to count the lives and livelihoods cost by Super Typhoon Haiyan, we appeal to governments across the world not only for sympathy but also for solidarity by supporting the institutional arrangement to address loss and damage,” said Aksyon Klima Philipinas national coordinator Voltaire Alferez.

Aksyon Klima, a network of more than 40 civil society organisations, also called out the developed countries, which led to the frustration in the latest talks on loss and damage.

But despite the recalcitrance of some rich nations, the Caribbean is taking the initiative in some areas. Black-Layne told IPS that Antigua and many of the other countries have been hit by storms so often that they’ve passed some of the best building codes in the region.

“That for us is a success story. Hurricane Luis, a category two storm, hit in 1995 and it sat on the island for two days and it destroyed 90 percent of the homes and just thinking about it I get goose pimples because you remember that,” she told IPS.

“The success story is that one year later we got hit by a category three storm and we had only 10 percent damage. So in one year we were able to recover, rebuild, and we built back better.”

St. Kitts (pictured here) and its northern neighbour Jamaica are increasing their energy efficiency with solar streetlights. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Peter Richards
BELMOPAN, Belize, Aug 23 2013 (IPS)

Every year, the Caribbean’s electric sector burns through approximately 30 million barrels of fuel. Overall, the region imports in excess of 170 million barrels of petroleum products annually.

Dr. Al Binger, technical coordinator for the recently launched multi-million-dollar Energy for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Caribbean Buildings Project, said that the region must now focus on ways to reduce the amount of fuel used to generate electricity, and in the process save millions of dollars.

He told IPS that building modifications, such as replacing windows and doors, installing solar water heaters and other retrofitting activities, are among the major components of the EDS project, which he hopes will eventually be embraced by all 15 members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

“Improving the efficiency of energy use in the building sector is a project priority. We’re looking for a 10 to 15-percent improvement across the whole electricity sector in this pilot project, which means we could save the equivalent of about 400,000 dollars per year for the pilot project [in five countries]. So you see, energy efficiency pays back quickly. It’s a good investment,” he told IPS.

Belize will be the first to begin implementation of the ESD project, which seeks to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent in the near term and increase the use of renewable energy.

Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St. Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago are next in line to participate in the four-year, 12.4-million-dollar project that was launched by the Belize-based Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) this week.

“The participating countries expressed interest in collaborating, which is exceptional as countries usually do these activities individually,” said the CCCCC in a release, noting that each country will establish a national steering committee, a project manager and an executing agency.

The centre says the EDS project will do a range of things to support the Implementation Plan, the landmark policy document that guides the Caribbean’s climate change response. This includes boosting capacity to perform audits, introducing new building codes, labelling appliances as energy-savers, and creating best practices for how the private sector can reduce its energy consumption.

A major focus is resilience, and helping economies adapt to new weather conditions.

Binger noted that Jamaica, for example, had to give up its banana industry after 100 years because it became unsustainable due in part to climatic changes.

“Jamaica built an entire railroad just to grow banana… So the Implementation Plan is about the economy of tomorrow, what will it look like, and that starts with the energy sector,” he said.

Earlier this month, the architect Brian Bernal, addressing a workshop hosted by the Jamaica Institute of Architects in association with the Caribbean Architecture Students Association of the University of Technology (UTECH), said that overhauling the island’s energy use profile would not be enough to protect it from rising sea levels, increased air temperature and more intense storms and hurricanes.

He argued that the effort has to be coupled with a deliberate move to ensure that buildings can withstand the anticipated shocks.

“We need to change the way we use energy resources to reduce our CO2 emissions, while simultaneously increasing our ability to resist the effects of climate change,” Bernal said.

“Robust and enforced building codes are highly effective in ensuring a better quality of building and when employed in conjunction with green building standards or practices will significantly increase the functional resilience of our buildings,” said Bernal, whose company serves as the lead consultant of the multi-disciplinary team for the “Build Better Jamaica — Developing Design Concepts for Climate Change Resilient Buildings project”.

That project is sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank and the Institute of Sustainable Development and is aimed at helping Caribbean countries prepare for climate change, particularly in the design and construction of buildings that are more resilient to disasters, but which do not compromise the natural environment.

The CCCCC said that the main aims of the ESD project, the “first regional project of its kind in CARICOM”, are to increase the number of successful commercial applications of energy efficiency and conservation in buildings as well as expand the market for renewable energy technology applications for power generation.

“We will be primarily using photovoltaics, [and] some wind energy to a lesser extent,” said Binger.

At a 2010 Caribbean conference, the Climate Studies Group at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Jamaica, noted that small-scale wind for domestic use offers an advantage over total reliance on grid-supplied electricity if net metering is allowed and also for standalone systems where the wind is fairly consistent.

Owolabi Elabanjo, an agriculture extension officer based in Antigua, says the country has suffered much damage from hurricanes. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
ST. JOHN'S, Antigua, Jun 12 2013 (IPS)

With their islands devoid of rivers or streams, farmers in Antigua and Barbuda have been building dams and ponds for centuries, harvesting rainwater to irrigate their crops and provide drinking water for their livestock.

But now with the advent of climate change, they are facing major challenges. Stronger and more frequent storms regularly destroy trees planted around catchment areas as watershed as well as grass planted in and around these areas to slow evaporation.

“Since 1995, since Hurricane Luis, we have suffered a lot of damage,” Owolabi Elabanjo, an agriculture extension officer based in Antigua, told IPS. “We have suffered a lot in some of our mini-dams or ponds with the hurricanes and some of the storms.”

In September 1995, Hurricane Luis, a category four hurricane, passed directly over Barbuda, causing catastrophic damage in Antigua and neighbouring islands like St. Barthelemy, St. Martin and Anguilla.

The storm left 19 dead and nearly 70,000 homeless, causing damage estimated at 3 billion U.S. dollars. All of Antigua-Barbuda’s beaches were eroded by hurricane force waves.

Elabanjo said water is one of the most important factors of production in agriculture.

“You can use any other material apart from land to grow food, but we still need water to put into that material, so water becomes the number one factor of production,” he said.

But, he noted, water is a scarce and therefore expensive commodity, not only for agriculture but also for home use.

Elabanjo said the Ministry of Agriculture has been partnering with the Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to educate farmers about rainwater harvesting and to create better opportunities for water use."If we are serious about food security and reducing our food import bill, we have to do something about water."
-- Owolabi Elabanjo,

“If we are serious about food security and reducing our food import bill, we have to do something about water,” he told IPS.

Water and agriculture

Lystra Fletcher-Paul, land and water officer and the FAO representative for Guyana, agreed, noting that one of the key issues for water management is allocating water for agriculture.

“In a number of countries, you find that the priority is always water for domestic use, water for health, water for manufacturing, and if there is any water left they give it to agriculture,” she told IPS.

“You can’t be serious about food security if you are going to leave water for agriculture as the last priority. You have to have a strategy which says, ‘whether we have a drought or not, agriculture is going to get this amount of water.'”

Fletcher-Paul said the FAO has been active in the region, assisting countries with water management. In Antigua and Barbuda’s case, she said the FAO has been working with authorities since 1991, looking at soil and water management.

In 2008, Antigua was one of eight countries to benefit from a study of the feasibility of rainwater harvesting conducted jointly with the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI), the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).

At the end of the study, the research group found rainwater harvesting in Antigua to be very feasible because the island receives an average of about 750 millimetres of rain per year.

Fletcher-Paul emphasised the importance of having a disaster risk management plan for the agricultural sector.

“Hurricanes are a normal event now; we’re talking about climate change,” she said, adding that the Caribbean would be facing more extreme weather events.

Protection must be set up in advance, whether well ahead of the hurricane season or just before, Fletcher-Paul said, such as planting trees around dams or grass to help hold soil.

2,010 trees

Agriculture Minister Hilson Baptiste told IPS that Antigua and Barbuda has been taking climate change seriously. And through what’s known as the Climate Project, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Environment Division have been on a drive to combat deforestation, one tree at a time.

Launched in June 2010, the goal of the Climate Change Project was to plant 2010 trees. Three years in, Baptiste boasts, “We plant more trees in Antigua than any other country in the Caribbean.”

Twice a year, school children are taken on a tree-planting trip, planting between 5,000-6,000 trees.

Every year on Arbor Day, “we give out half a million plants to schools, community groups and church groups to encourage citizens to plant a tree,” Baptiste told IPS. “Orange, avocado, breadfruit and mango trees are planted,” he added.

The agriculture minister said that having seen the effects of climate change on crop production, Antigua and Barbuda has no choice but to intensify its efforts to mitigate climate change.

Just as important are the island’s forests, the agriculture minister said, noting that not a single tree is destroyed in the food production process.

“Farming is done in between the forests and sometimes below the forests. No destruction of forests takes place to facilitate agriculture,” he told IPS.

Ashley Joseph, deputy director in the Ministry of Agriculture, agreed the environment should not suffer at the cost of food production.

“If you don’t protect the environment, after a time, your production is going to dwindle. So you have to take into consideration the environment when you are producing,” he told IPS.

For example, the government educates farmers about controlled grazing. “Where there is overgrazing, the grass and the herbage in pastures is depleted,” Joseph described.  “When that happens the ground is left bare, and whenever it rains, the top soil is washed away, and the production becomes less and less.”

Water catchment in Antigua, where water is one of the most scarce resources. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
ST. JOHN'S, Antigua, Apr 30 2013 (IPS)

In drought-plagued Antigua, where water and energy top the list of most precious resources, one campaign is encouraging islanders to conserve both of these commodities.

The campaign, Green Antigua, of the state-owned Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA) has caught the attention of Brian Cooper, a British scientist who moved here in 1986.

“I’m very glad to see that the government is getting more serious,” Cooper told IPS, of APUA’s “very concrete programme”, through which people can produce their own power, thereby reducing reliance on the company.

“I don’t think it’s such that they can actually sell back to the company at this stage but at least it’s a start,” Cooper said. Residents of Antigua are beset by frequent power outages, and Cooper added that residents could also take very simple steps to conserve energy.

He suggested that people learn what household appliances consume the most energy, then try to cut back on using them.

“Refrigerators, hot water heaters and air conditioning units are big energy users,” he pointed out. “If you must have hot water for showering, install solar water heating so you can cut down on the amount of energy you are using.”Residents could take very simple steps to conserve energy.

Cooper did admit that installing a solar water heating system is expensive and that “it does take a few years to write off the savings”.

As for conserving water, APUA, through the campaign, encourages residents to reduce water use and waste in their kitchens, bathrooms and outdoors.

Steps residents can take include finding and repairing leaks in faucets and toilets, not using running water to thaw frozen foods, installing low-volume toilet units that use less than half the water of older models, and taking shorter showers.

Another tip is never to pour water down the drain when it can be used elsewhere, such as to water a plant or garden or to clean one’s home.

APUA also wants residents to adopt habits that save energy, such as ironing only once a week, installing energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs or LED bulbs, and not overcharging cell phones.

Creating a sustainable future

The price of crude oil has consistently remained above 100 U.S. dollars per barrel since the middle of 2012, according to the latest available information from the International Energy Agency.

“The facts could not be more overwhelming,” Antigua and Barbuda’s prime minister, Baldwin Spencer, told IPS, adding that his office was spearheading efforts for Antigua and Barbuda to transition towards a more sustainable energy future.

“Every day, we learn of new information pointing to the adverse effects of fossil fuels on the earth’s climate and environment,” he said, emphasising that small countries are the ones most vulnerable to these effects.

Spencer said while Antigua and Barbuda’s contribution to global climate change is miniscule, “we nevertheless have certain principles to advance”.

Antigua and Barbuda, he noted, uses a large amount of energy because of its relatively high living standards. High consumption, however, “presents opportunities for us to reduce our demand for energy through improved management” without sacrificing growth and development, he said.

In fact, it is time to adapt policies, measures and patterns of energy use that will enhance competitiveness and efficiency in socioeconomic development, Spencer said.

In 2001, the government of Antigua and Barbuda endorsed a national energy policy, providing a broad framework for action on energy related matters.

The policy identified priorities including energy cost reduction, diversification of energy sources, electricity reliability improvement and stimulation of new economic opportunities, and Spencer said that the cabinet had approved “a comprehensive list of components required for installation of various renewable energy technologies, particularly for wind and solar applications”.

Going public

The government also successfully installed a 6-kilowatt solar photovoltaic power unit at the Shirley Heights Lookout near the historic Nelsons Dockyard National Park, with assistance from the United States government, the Organisation of American States, the European Union and the German government.

Valerie Hodge, general manager at the Shirley Heights Lookout, noted that the project constituted an important asset for the location, which was not connected to the existing APUA grid and was totally dependent on costly generator power to supply electricity.

Spencer said he believed that “the results so far have exceeded expectations”. In addition to significantly reducing the use of the generator, the project had reduced environmental pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and spurred productivity.

“The solar power unit also serves as a demonstration of the use of these technologies within an environmentally sensitive and historic site,” Spencer added.

The prime minister said the government has identified a number of other demonstration sites, including the VC Bird International Airport and the government office complex, for displaying renewable energy technologies.

The 30-megawatt Wadadli Power Plant in Antigua opened on September 8, 2011. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Dec 13 2012 (IPS)

With the exception of oil rich Trinidad and Tobago, most, if not all, other Caribbean islands are extremely vulnerable when it comes to the high costs of imported fuels that are easily disrupted by natural disasters and other phenomena.

Barbados, for example, has spent an estimated four million dollars on oil imports in 2011, equal to six percent of its gross domestic product (GDP). This amount has had a direct negative impact on direct production costs and the overall competitiveness of the Barbadian economy.

The island’s prime minister, Freundel Stuart, however, pointed out that “although many small island developing states are energy deficient in conventional energy, limitless potential for renewable energy and energy efficiency resides in our countries”.

Stuart said that the fundamental issue is how small island developing states (SIDS), which have “inherent structural problems and limited resources”, can “convert this renewable energy potential into a tangible product that is accessible, affordable and adaptable”.

Barbados has been actively promoting sustainable energy practices both on the supply side, mainly using renewable energy sources, and on the demand side, encouraging energy efficiency and energy conservation, in an effort to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, enhance energy security and stability, improve the economy’s competitiveness and achieve greater environmental sustainability.

Barbardos has more than 40,000 solar water heaters that save the country nearly 13 million U.S. dollars every year. “We are using the country’s success in this industry as a platform for renewable energy development,” Stuart said.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) observed its second annual CARICOM Energy Week from Nov. 11-17 under the theme of “sustainable energy powering a green economy”. The Energy Week was established in 2011 to provide a platform for increased awareness about energy matters, especially given the critical importance of energy to economic development.

This year, the Community focused on building awareness about energy conservation and efficiency, as well as the development of renewable energy. It also focused on the necessity of a cleaner, greener energy outlook to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Currently, the Caribbean region depends heavily on imported petroleum and petroleum products, to the tune of 9 billion U.S. dollars per year over the last few years.

Stuart’s Antigua counterpart, Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer, told IPS that energy in all its various forms is essential to all forms of economic and social development. Energy Week provided an opportunity to reflect on the uses of energy in Antigua and Barbuda and develop strategies for promoting its efficient and sustainable use.

“As a small island state, Antigua and Barbuda is also among the countries most vulnerable to global climate change resulting from the use of fossil fuels, and therefore must lead by example in promoting sustainable uses of energy resources, including through energy conservation and energy efficiency,” he said.

“Improving energy efficiency is a critical element of remaining competitive in today’s global economy. With the increasingly high international prices for fuel, we have to be innovative and forward thinking in our efforts to implement energy efficiency measures that can reduce our costs, minimise our environmental footprint and enhance our attractiveness as a ‘green’ destination.”

Spencer said that some resorts in the highly competitive tourism industry, as well as other businesses, are already installing solar panels, waste water management systems, and other measures to save energy.

In its effort to promote a green economy, the Antiguan government recently announced an electricity interconnection policy for renewable energy. The initiative will allow accredited private producers of renewable energy, such as wind and solar power, to connect to the Antigua Public Utilities Authority. The Authority will then be able to reduce the amount of electricity it generates using imported petroleum.

It will also allow “the private consumer to generate an early return on his investment and lead ultimately to mitigating the price for electricity to the consumer and to the economy as a whole”, Spencer said. “All of us are faced with the increasing costs associated with energy. While there is little that we can do about the price of energy, we all can take measures to increase the efficiency with which we use that energy, thereby getting more for our dollar.”

As governments devise plans and programmes to address the global economic crisis, the transition to sustainable energy presents a unique opportunity for all to make their contribution to climate change by powering a green economy.

“It is a huge task – but an achievable one – If we move forward together with one purpose,” Spencer said.

Diane Black-Layne, the chief environmental officer of the environmental division in the government of Antigua and Barbuda, agreed that implementing 100 percent renewable technology in Antigua and Barbuda would result in a significant reduction in energy bills.

“We can use that money that we are paying for our energy bills now and develop the economy, put it into schools; put it into getting us ready for the changes in the climate and things like that,” she told IPS.

“Why didn’t we make the transition to renewables all along? We did not make the changes because nobody wants to give up oil; nobody wants to give up the existing way of doing things.”

The road linking Sweetes Village to Bendals Village in Antigua was washed out during Hurricanes Earl and Omar. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
ST. JOHN'S, Antigua, Dec 4 2012 (IPS)

Tourism-dependent Antigua may have been spared the ravages of superstorm Sandy, but the island is nevertheless feeling its effects on environmental, political and economic fronts.

The country is preparing for a drop in visitors from the United States, a key source of tourists for Antigua. Tourism Minister John Maginley pointed to the importance of the northeastern states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, which were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy and which he called “the destination’s largest source market in the United States”.

University of the West Indies (UWI) Professor Norman Girvan has suggested that the economic impact of Sandy could be as bad as that of the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sep. 11, 2001. “We will see a downturn…from now until January and February,” he said. “I think the initial impact will possibly be as great as 9/11, but in terms of the long-term effects it is too early to tell.”

Local officials say Sandy, which brushed Antigua as a tropical storm, has served as a wake-up call for the country, blowing the topic of climate change back to front and center.

“Events like Hurricane Sandy tend to bring our focus back,” Diane Black-Layne, chief environmental officer in the environmental division of the government of Antigua and Barbuda, told IPS. “There are a range of adaptation measures that have to take place.”

“We now have to adjust to a new world or to a new norm…every single country will experience extremes in weather fluctuations at a frequency that is unprecedented,” she added. Although many remain skeptical about climate change, Black-Layne said she was pleased to see that the Antigua and Barbuda government is taking steps to prepare the island.

She pointed out that in the Land Use Plan recently passed by Parliament, “climate change issues have been taken into consideration.” She added, “In a few years when we are reviewing applications for development, especially on the coastline or in flood prone areas, we will have to take climate change into consideration.”

“If you think you can go to a minister and the minister would tell you, ‘Yes, build whatever you want, wherever you want,'” she warned, “the sea will come and take away your building or insurance companies will not insure you.”

In July, Agriculture Minister Hilson Baptiste announced that the government intended to join with the Nature Conservancy, a global climate change organisation, to take advantage of its debt-for-climate-adaptation swap. The body is expected to pay off Antigua and Barbuda’s debt of 18 million U.S. dollars to Brazil in exchange for the country’s involvement in coastal zone management.

The government has until the end of 2012 to put its proposal in writing and submit it to the Nature Conservancy.

Signs of change

Brian Cooper, a British scientist who moved to Antigua in 1986, told IPS he has been observing stronger rainfall and other signs of a changing climate on the island over the past few years.

“Certainly we’ve witnessed a renewed intensity and frequency of storms. We have seen what I think has been quite a departure from what we’ve experienced before, that many of the storms have very far-flung rain bands which are often a great distance from the centre of the storm,” he said.

“In the case of [Hurricane] Omar in 2008 we didn’t feel anything much of it until after it had passed… [when] we we got this rain band ,which didn’t last very long but it dumped a tremendous amount of rain in the south of the island. There was tremendous flooding in the Body Ponds Valley and Bendals Village was cut off for a while because water was flowing over the bridge going into Bendals by several feet.”

“We had the same thing with [Hurricane] Earl in 2010, a tremendous burst of rain that had similar effects,” Cooper added.

A local resident, Winston Derrick, now in his sixties, pointed to the destruction of a road, which he said had existed since his childhood, as clear evidence of the effects of climate change. Just days ago, he tried to drive from Sweetes Village to Bendals Village but could not, he said. “The road has become impassable. It’s all washed out.”

Cooper said a combination of Earl and Omar washed out the road, with which he too is familiar.

“That is the result of some of the torrential rainfall that we have been having particularly in the southwest part of the island. I’ve been living in Sweetes for about 10 years and I used to drive down that road and I can’t drive there now,” he said.

But despite all the evidence, Dr. Cooper said people are still not taking climate change as seriously as they should.

“Most of it is too far away,” he said. “I think when we had that series of hurricanes people were beginning to think, ‘Okay, what’s happening?’ But it is also difficult for…scientists to pick up changes that happen over a long period of time,” he told IPS.

Black-Layne disagreed. “It is frightening when you have to listen to the science and the projections,” she said, especially when one has children who will be affected by these changes. “To some extent you are saddened by the slow pace in which the world is reacting,” she added. “It’s terrifying what is happening and what is going to happen.”

Yet Black-Layne still believed Antigua and Barbuda and other Caribbean countries can draw positive lessons from the effects of climate change.

“We have to make national policy decisions and legislative decisions to make sure that from this terrible thing we will benefit from it in the end, or [that] we can come out as close to the top as possible,” she concluded.

A barge transports sand from Barbuda. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
CODRINGTON, Barbuda, Nov 30 2012 (IPS)

Local scientists are warning the tiny 62-square-mile island of Barbuda is becoming one of the most vulnerable spots on earth to the consequences of climate change.

“We are small, we are flat…and if the climate change predictions come true, especially with respect to sea level rise, you are looking at potentially a third of the island being not available for the sort of things we are using it for right now,” marine biologist John Mussington told IPS.

Worsening the problem is the long-time practice of sand removal from the island, he says.

“You have land, sand and water, and when you take sand out of the system, sand will move from somewhere else to replace that which is moved. So the amount of sand which has been taken out of Barbuda over the years has impacted our shoreline.

“We already have accelerated erosion taking place because of the sea level rise, and added to that you are taking sand out of the system so what you find happening, that beautiful beach that stretches all the way from the north come around to the south, most of those areas where 10 years ago you had grape trees and coconut trees, they are just not there anymore and you are actually seeing the collapse of the vegetation into the water,” he added.

In July 2011, Barbuda renamed a three-mile stretch of beach after the late Princess Diana of Wales, who was a frequent visitor. Mussington says the island could well lose that very beach, along with others that attract tourists and boost economic growth.

“You experience the sea level rise which is being predicted, and one of the ways in which the shoreline responds to that is that the shoreline will move so the beaches will recede closer to the solid land,” he told IPS.

“The low-lying area which is created by all that sand being excavated, that now potentially is an area that becomes flooded with every storm. The last serious ground swell we had three years ago was sufficient to flood the entire area for quite a few weeks.”

Dr. Brian Cooper, who heads the Antigua and Barbuda Environmental Awareness Group (EAG), said both islands have been experiencing their share of extreme weather conditions – one of the consequences predicted by climate change scientists.

Dr. Cooper told IPS extremes of weather inflict human trauma, cause economic damage and destabilise agriculture.

“We need first of all to look at our agriculture and our food supply, because the way the world is going, the way the population is increasing, and if these predictions about climate change come about, a lot of the world’s food-producing areas are probably going to be affected,” he said.

“I think we need to take our own food production very seriously and that to me means we ought to be looking very, very critically at the agricultural land we are putting into housing,” he said. “I think too much of that has happened already.”

Dr. Cooper also said the country needs look at the water supply for agriculture because if droughts are going to be serious and prolonged, this would affect food production.

“We have desalination but the cost of desalinated water is really not amenable to wide-scale use for agriculture and we’ve done very little to look at increasing our other sources of surface water or ground water, and ground water itself is likely to be affected by rising sea levels because all our well-fed areas are very close to the coast,” he said.

He pointed to recent floods in Russia and Pakistan, and weather extremes in the United States and Canada as clear evidence that climate change is real and happening now.

“It’s really falling in line very much with what was predicted…we get extremes of weather anyway, things go in cycles, you have various climatic cycles coming together and giving you exceptional weather conditions, but all those things are exacerbated by the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, at least that is what the climate change scientists are more or less unanimously agreed on,” Cooper said.

Dale Destin, a climatologist at the Antigua and Barbuda Meteorological Service, told IPS that over the past two years, the country saw a period of wet conditions that has now transitioned into what may become a mild drought.

“These things would generally happen in cycles but with climate change some of these observations become more extreme,” he said.

Mussington said despite the grim predictions, climate change need not be a death sentence, adding that Small Island Developing States like Antigua and Barbuda have to adapt.

However, he laments that the adaptation issue is not being taken seriously and is absent from policies governing certain critical areas.

“Do we have a policy on agriculture?” he asked. “Do we have a policy on tourism which takes into consideration what is predicted to happen?

“So, for example, tourism they say is where our economy benefits the most from, so if you know that climate change is happening, the common sense thing is that you should have a policy in place as of yesterday to say that ‘okay, we expect that our coastline is going to be most severely impacted so that any existing hotels we can’t do anything about but future development should be done away from the shoreline’,” he said.

“We are not hearing that yet. You look at the same thing in agriculture; you are going to have a lot more of your coastal areas being salinated.

“We need to apply crops that can withstand the higher temperate and higher salinity and so on – these are the things we need to put into our policies and start implementing them now and if we don’t we are basically just running to the cliff and jumping off blindly,” he warned.

In the 1980’s, Caribbean countries wanted to shore up their prospects of social and economic development in the coming decades, so they looked to the financial services sector to spur employment and development. They managed to develop a robust industry, particularly in the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands.

Today, however, the region has been struggling to keep up with evolving international regulations. These challenges come at a high cost, even as proponents of the regulations argue that they are critical in dealing with the global financial and economic crisis.

For at least two years, the international community has pressured the Caribbean, where several countries are well known as tax havens, to shut down its financial centres and implement a number of measures in order to qualify for bilateral aid. Since then, little has changed, delegates at the second meeting of the Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM) Conference on the International Financial Services Sector in the Caribbean Region, held Oct. 30-31 in Antigua, learned.

Baldwin Spencer, the Antiguan prime minister, said the international community continues to issue “repeated demands that the region should be treated on a level playing field with financial centres in the industrialised economies using the principles of natural justice”.

He said that while the Caribbean has been committed to developing financial services in a “responsible manner and investing in their good supervision and regulation”, developed countries are the ones that have dropped the “regulatory ball”, to devastating effect on the rest of the world.

The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has pushed for restricting, and in some cases, outlawing financial services in the Caribbean, threatening on occasions to blacklist countries that have failed to comply with some of its policies.

Regulations with a purpose

Those who support such regulations say that they are necessary given the current financial climate. The newly appointed head of the delegation of the European Union to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, Mikael Barfod, has defended the OECD position, insisting that it is aimed at tackling tax fraud and harmful tax practises.

“In today’s environment with the international financial crisis, the international taxation cooperation between governments and between tax administrations has gained in importance,” he said, noting that since 2009, there has been “major progress” in these areas.

He acknowledged that while Caribbean countries have made an effort to sign a “sufficient amount” of Tax Information Exchange Agreements in order to be fully accepted by the OECD, “there is more to be done in many states and the governance standards defined internationally by G20 and OECD are changing”.

Avinash Persaud, an international expert on the financial services sector and chairman of the London Business School, told IPS that the financial sector “is really quite significant” in Caribbean economies, accounting for as much as 50 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) for islands like Barbados and Antigua and Barbuda.

“They represent a major part of tax revenues. Over the past 10 years they have come under tremendous pressure by the larger economies” such as those of London, Zurich, and New York, which are under fiscal pressure themselves with little or no tax revenues and which now want to compete with Caribbean financial centres.

“They are trying to establish a set of global rules which they decide themselves and then impose on us,” said Persaud. “Then they judge whether we are fitting with those rules or not. Judge and jury. It is really ad hoc and it is really designed to close down the international financial centres coming from the Caribbean. It is certainly not a level playing field.”

New standards to follow

Ivan Ogando Lora, the director general of CARIFORUM, which is comprised of the 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) bloc and the Dominican Republic, said recent recommendations by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) regarding international standards for combating money laundering and financing of terrorism, will also now pose new problems for the region.

“Compliance to international standards now seems to be the order of the day and Caribbean jurisdictions have been making strides in this regard,” he said, noting however, despite the efforts, that Caribbean countries “continue to attract negative attention”.

CARICOM countries have already developed a final draft of a Financial Services Agreement that if approved by mid-2013 would create a single financial space with common legislation, regulations, administrative procedures and practices and will also provide for cross border supervision and harmonisation of standards.

The United States, which has complained in the past of its wealthy citizens using the Caribbean to escape paying taxes, has itself introduced a range of changes to its financial regulatory environment that regional stakeholders fear could also undermine the financial services sector within CARIFORUM.

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), for example, would require U.S. tax authorities to levy a 30 percent withholding tax on both foreign and non-financial foreign institutions where new reporting requirements have not been met.

The requirements would affect traditional financial institutions such as retail and commercial banks as well as investment banks, securities and brokerage firms, private banks and wealth management firms that do business in the United States. Any institution doing business with U.S. individuals and entities would have to immediately adopt procedures, processes and systems necessary for FATCA compliance.

Persaud said that this latest strategy underscores the struggle facing the Caribbean in recent years.

“They have essentially moved land and water to try and comply with the new rules and when they do so, the rules then change again and the costs are extremely burdensome. The cost for the Caribbean financial centre complying with international rules is ten times as the per cent of GDP as the cost of the larger rich countries complying with the rules they have set.

“The problem is we can’t abandon the sector because it is an important sector,” he said, urging the Caribbean “to fight a better fight”.

A couple looks at their backyard garden in the Cassada Gardens community in St. John's, Antigua. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
ST. JOHN'S, Antigua, Jun 18 2012 (IPS)

As a boy, Hilson Baptiste remembers going to his neighbour’s home and giving them a large slice of pumpkin grown in his family’s backyard garden. In return, he would be given two fish for his family.

But Baptiste, who is currently Antigua’s minister of agriculture, regrets that in his country, those days are over. He is now part of an initiative to prevent the island from spending millions of dollars on importing food that could easily be grown, in some cases, in the backyards of many homes.

In 2010, the twin-island nation imported approximately 16 million pounds of vegetables, according to figures from the Antigua and Barbuda government. Baptiste said serious measures must be taken to drastically reduce that figure.

“I want to see that happen. You would not have to buy anything from the supermarket; you can grow your own and share with your neighbours,” he said. He related his boyhood story of exchanging pumpkin for fish, noting, “We build better communities when we do this.”

Even the island’s ceremonial head of state, Dame Louise Lake-Tack, is supporting the initiative. The representative of Queen Elizabeth in Antigua and Barbuda, she has no problem getting her hands dirty as she seeks to boost food production in the country.

To ensure that the 80,000 inhabitants of this small two-island state understand the need to drastically reduce the millions of dollars spent on importing food, Lake-Tack assisted the government by distributing seedlings to homeowners, a move authorities hope will address the issue of food security here.

Known as the National Backyard Gardening Programme, the ministry of agriculture-led initiative is aiming at getting the population to produce four million pounds of food annually in their own backyards.

“We encourage people to grow all types of vegetables and even fruits,” Owolabi Elabanjo, an agriculture extension officer, told IPS.

“We’ve seen a rise in (the) production of tomato, sweet pepper, okra, lettuce and seasoning like rosemary and thyme. We are also now introducing vegetables that (are not) common in many homes.”

Family farming

The programme initially began with the help of the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in 2008 and now, approximately 2,500 families are registered.

FAO’s sub-regional coordinator for the Caribbean, Florita Kentish, said the FAO is a firm believer in activities to alleviate the effects of rising food prices and global economic hardship, and to ensure that even the most vulnerable have good nutrition.

“Home gardening has a long established tradition of offering great potential to improve household food security and alleviate micronutrient deficiencies in many ways,” Kentish said. The FAO and the World Health Organisation are jointly involved in the initiative to improve nutrition.

Home gardening can help achieve such goals by offering direct access to a diversity of foods rich in nutrients. It also helps people save money by spending less on food and earn extra income by selling garden produce, ultimately increasing their purchasing power. During seasonally lean periods, home gardens can serve as an additional source of food.

The initiative is especially important in rural areas where income-earning opportunities are fewer, Kentish said, adding that it is becoming increasingly important for vulnerable households, including those headed by females.

The government is taking steps to better support the initiative, which has been extended to some of the nation’s schools, Baptiste said.

“We are zoning Antigua off into three or four zones to focus on each zone once per month to ensure that we assist you to better supply yourself and your family with all the vegetables you need,” he told those registered under the programme.

In the month of May alone the ministry distributed more than 15,000 seedlings – among them tomatoes, butternut squash, zucchini, peppers and an assortment of fruit trees – to families.

Environmental challenges

But despite such drive and commitment to the programme, Elabanjo said Antigua and Barbuda was at a disadvantage in terms of agricultural production, especially when climate change is factored into an already precarious environment.

Even before climate change became an issue, Antigua and Barbuda lacked an adequate water supply, Elabanjo told IPS. “All of the other islands can use free water (from streams and rivers) for production of food but an average farmer in Antigua has to pay for water.” Higher temperatures brought by climate change have exacerbated the problem.

Elabanjo, a Nigerian farmer who moved to Antigua 20 years ago, explained that during the summer, an entire month can pass without any rainfall.

“Antigua is one of the few islands where we don’t have good rainfall. The conditions are semi-arid, so we have one of the lowest rainfalls in all of the Caribbean islands and above all, we don’t have a single river in Antigua,” he said.

“But when you go to St. Vincent, Dominica, St. Lucia…everybody has an abundance of water,” which is critical for agriculture, he pointed out. He praised the nation’s farmers for managing to grow produce despite the environmental constraints.

The Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from Jun. 1 to Nov. 30, also affects production levels.

“Right now, as the hurricane season is here, you will see some farmers reducing their production because they are not sure if a hurricane will come and destroy their crops,” Elabanjo said.

Without insurance, farmers have no protection, he added. “Rather than losing money they tend to cut back, and by cutting back they affect supply.”

Finance Minister Harold Lovell welcomed the initiative, noting that several years ago, society had turned its back on agriculture. But the resultant importation of foods and vegetables came at a high cost to the country.

“Even if we do not produce everything that we eat, we should produce substantially what we eat, and we should also eat what we produce,” Lovell said.

In Antigua and other Caribbean countries with a strong tradition of agriculture, most impoverished people buy their food. In Antigua’s case, Elabanjo said, the majority of it is imported.

“Our environment is not conducive (to) the production of certain crops so most of the produce you see in the market or the supermarket is imported from neighbouring islands of Dominica or St. Vincent,” he said.

But if the backyard gardening initiative – which boasts a range of participants, from the impoverished to those who are working professionals – works, the future might soon look different for Antigua and Barbuda.

When scientists speak of the Sargasso Sea, which occupies part of the Atlantic Ocean, there is usually little mention of things drifting out because of the immobile currents.

That is until now. Over the past few weeks, seaweed from the Sargasso Sea has been making its way towards the Caribbean, washing up en masse on beaches as surrounding currents change with weather and temperature patterns.

It’s a situation that is posing serious problems for local ecosystems and critical industries such as tourism and fishing.

“It’s the first time in history that I or anyone in the fishermen association have seen so much sargassum weed invading our shores,” Gerald Price, communications officer for the Antigua and Barbuda Fishermen Association, told IPS.

He said the seaweed was clogging the engines of most of the boats used by the fishermen.

While it the cause remains unclear, the Antigua Fisheries Division notes that “strong and unusual currents from recent storms have probably brought the mass of seaweed from the Sargasso Sea to the Caribbean.

“It is anticipated that the masses of seaweeds could increase as more tropical storms are predicted for this hurricane season,” it adds.

Changing currents and more powerful storms due to climate change are one possibility. Another is rising ocean temperatures, and the resulting effects on the growth rates of different marine species.

Sargussum fluitans. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Vince Best, an environmental scientist and lecturer at Antigua State College, told IPS, “It is possible that climate change could be indirectly responsible for the proliferation of this particular weed which is currently affecting many global coastlines.

“Increased temperatures and the associated effects may be the precursor which is somehow affecting the overall physiology of the various species of this weed causing, maybe, excessive growth; hence the excessive amounts of the weed seen in aquatic environments.”

The species being observed is a brown, macro-algae called Sargussum fluitans (sargassum seaweed), a free-floating algae found on the open sea surface and known to occur in this region. It is often found in association with Sargasso weed (Sargassum natans) that is native to the Caribbean.

“It’s hard to tell the real reason why the sargassum weed is washing up on shores in the Caribbean without some kind of technical assessment,” Sandra Prescod Dalrymple, environmental resource management specialist with ESP Consultants (Caribbean) Inc. told IPS.

“It could be as a result of strong winds that cause strong wave action, winter swells or a combination of things.”

Regardless of the cause, she noted that that the effects are both immediate – such as flies and other vermin, putrid scent, and inconvenience for beach users – as well as long term, and that there could be serious health issues if the situation is not dealt with in a timely and effective manner.

“The tourism industry will be impacted since tourists usually come to the region primarily for its sea and sand,” Dalrymple said, adding that “other longer term impacts could be seen in beach erosion since seaweed usually protects the beach by absorbing wave energy thereby reducing the impacts of waves on the ocean.”

Marine environmentalist Eli Fuller urged governments to quickly develop a comprehensive plan to deal with the problem.

“A lot of the Sargasso weed is caught up in the regular currents bringing them back to Antigua, and we have found out that the west coast of Africa has it much worse than we do here in Antigua.

“I saw a photograph of Sierra Leone that showed that they have a serious problem with the weed. It’s an event, this is a historical event which is unfolding,” he added.

The Antigua and Barbuda government has been urging citizens to be cautious, assuring them in the process that there was no immediate health risk associated with the sargassum weed.

“The unusually large mats of algae in bays and on beaches could disrupt recreational, fishing and boating activities, disrupt the movement of marine turtles coming to beaches to lay their eggs, cause fishing gear and vessels to become entangled or obstruct general vessel traffic,” the government said in a statement.

“The general public is advised that while this new invasion is a nuisance, it poses no immediate threat to human health but all must exercise due care and caution if working continuously and directly within its environs. The sulphurous odour associated with it is primarily a result of decaying processes once the weed becomes stagnant in an area and is allowed to die.”

Price explained that the impact was also severe in the tourism sector after the sargassum weeds washed ashore, creating a “nasty stink” and driving tourists away from the beaches in a country which promotes itself as having 365 beaches – one for each day of the year.

The upscale St. James’s Club Resort and Villas located on a 100-acre peninsula on the southeastern coast of Antigua was forced to close its doors for several weeks late in 2011 as management devised ways to cope with the sargassum weed that has overtaken many beaches on the east and southeast coasts.

The hotel’s vice president, Alex Debretto, said the resort has employed more than two dozen people to clear the beaches.

Apart from Antigua and Barbuda, the seaweed has also affected other Caribbean islands, including Grenada, Barbados, St. Lucia and St. Bartholomew.

Dalrymple warns that while it’s important to remove the seaweed, countries also have to be careful since grazers rely on these plants for food and in turn provide sustenance for other creatures in the food chain. In addition, she said that these plants provide natural habitats for many living organisms and these too would suffer.

“One could see a decline in near-shore fisheries but this depends on the extent of the damage and the ability of the seagrass beds to recover after such events,” she said, adding “as such, the implications could differ depending on the coastal characteristics of the particular area and the state of the fisheries and seagrass beds prior to the event.”

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