Q&A: Caught Up in the Opportunities of Climate Change and Less So With Adaptation

By Desmond Brown

(IPS) – Caribbean countries have been signalling their willingness to dedicate time and resources to implement and sustain effective multi-hazard early warning systems.

Most countries located in the hurricane belt face being impacted during the yearly Atlantic Hurricane Season. But all Caribbean countries face another challenge—climate change

Ronald Jackson, Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), told IPS in an interview that the ambitions around establishing strong early warning systems in the Caribbean date back to the early 2000s.

But he said, “it still remains incipient, despite the fact that there has been some level of investment in the area over time.”

“I think Jamaica would have been the farthest advanced way back in the 90s with the Rio Cobre warning system which included a community warning infrastructure as well as telemetre gauges linked to the met offices and to the National Disaster Management Office,” he said

Jackson believes countries “have gotten more caught up . . . in the opportunities of climate change . . . and less so with advancing what is considered to be adaptation.”

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