The Caribbean is One of the Most Vulnerable Regions to Climate Change

Barbados, West Indies, Caribbean

With less than two months to go before COP15, the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen, TakePart continues to cover a breadth of relevant and compelling topics. One topic of particular interest to me is how climate change is impacting small island-states. Nations like the Maldives, for instance are extremely vulnerable. Like many islands in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, they are getting a lot of media attention, and for good reason.

Far rarer in news headlines (with the exception of Haiti), however, is how small island-states in the Caribbean Sea basin are being impacted. Climate scientists say the Caribbean region is among those regions most at risk from the effects of global warming. Aside from threats to public health and the natural environment, the globe's rapidly changing climate will cost many Caribbean countries an estimated $11 billion US dollars by 2080, or 11 percent of the gross domestic product.

"Islands on the Edge" is an award-winning short film directed by the Buccoo Reef Trust, and was broadcast on television throughout the English-speaking Caribbean earlier this year:

The good news is that Caribbean nations are hyper-aware of their region's vulnerability and many nations are pro-actively attempting to plan adaptation. One project at the governmental level is Caribbean Planning for Adaptation to Climate Change whose goal was to develop systems for monitoring sea level, climate, and biodiversity. That project has resulted in offshoots including the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC). When you visit the website, the first thing you see is a digital countdown to Copenhagen.

To date, island nations located in the Caribbean Sea are being affected by:

• Intensified, less predictable extreme weather events (from hurricane to drought and beyond)
• Coastal erosion from inundation by stronger storm surges and wave action
• Sea level rise resulting in salt water intrusion into fresh water supplies and into crops
• Damage to crops and unpredictable harvest rates - drops in crop yields
• Coral bleaching and deaths and loss of mangrove trees, which in turn reduces fish and other seafood populations, which in turn affects the economy (and decreases biodiversity).
• Loss of mangroves and corals also compounds coastal erosion and impacts the tourism economy, since many tours have historically been led through the coral reefs
• Increase in vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever and water-borne diseases such as cholera and cryptosporidium
• Infrastructure damage due to more powerful storms from warmer ocean waters as well as rising wind speeds impacting built structures
• Decreased tourism revenue overall, which destabilizes the local economies

Caribbean countries including Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Lucia, Grenada, Barbados, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica are participating in COP15. Time will tell what if any effects their participation will have on the summit outcomes. Let's hope for the best so that the Caribbean, and the globe, doesn't have to brace for the worst.

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