Jamaica calls for comprehensive climate change impact review
WASHINGTON, United States (CMC) — Jamaica yesterday called for a comprehensive review of the impact of climate change on the Caribbean, including the “cancers” not yet integrated into the process, as it also reiterated a call for the international community to review its concessionary lending policies to Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
“As natural disasters become more frequent, so do the adaptation costs imposed on us as Small Island Developing States, especially since we are on the front line of climate change impacts,” Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness told the high-level conference on building resilience to disasters and climate change in the Caribbean.
The event, sponsored by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank, is a follow-up on the 2017 high-level forum “Unleashing Growth and Strengthening Resilience”.
The IMF said it has brought together key stakeholders, including senior policymakers, multilateral development partners and the private sector to “explore incentives to shift the focus of policies towards building resilience and innovative disaster-risk financing policies and instruments that would help in the region”.
Holness, who is also the chairman of the 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) grouping, said that the region is facing rapid urbanisation in coastal zones with corresponding falling populations in rural areas and out islands.
Read more at: Jamaica Observer