BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – GOVERNOR of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), Timothy Antoine has informed that it is a matter of when and not if the region would have storms similar to Hurricanes Maria and Irma, since Climate Change is real.
Against that backdrop, he noted that the Caribbean region needs to build resilient infrastructures to withstand the effects of the changing climate.
“The aim of the Caribbean at this moment is to become the first climate smart climate resilient region in the world,” Antoine said.
In a recent interview at the World Bank meeting in the Washington DC, Antoine noted that the Caribbean was on the frontline of disaster, even though the region is the lowest emitters and is still the hardest hit.
The region was battered by two Category 5 hurricanes that left several countries devastated, and one island uninhabitable.
Antoine noted that the region is left with no other choice but to build with climate resilience in mind.
“So the plan is to make the region climate green, climate resilient...the first such region in the world. And now we are assembling a coalition of partners, both public sector and private sector, as well as developing agencies and development partners.
“Beyond the vision, ambition and plan, we have to resource it - financing is going to be needed. To do that, we would want to leverage, For example, the promised Climate Finance Funds. So with our limited resources in the Caribbean, we want to crowd in from climate finance and we want to crowd in the private sector.”
Emphasizing his point that more storms could be on the way when asked about the recovery efforts in Grenada following Hurricane Ivan, he emphatically stated that islands should expect more storms.
“In the case of Grenada, we had Hurricane Ivan in September 2004 and Emily in 2005. The point is that the storms keep coming! Frankly spoken, as the Prime Minister of Dominica said at the UN General Assembly a few weeks ago, the Caribbean is really at the frontline of the war against Climate Change.”
The Governor explained that when the storms arrive, they would impact the most powerful and powerless, since Climate Change is real.
For the future of the region, the Governor foresees green resilient infrastructure and an energy transition that is also green.
Just recently, the Prime Minister of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit, declared that his island would rebuild and become the first climate resilient country.
That island was hard hit after the eye of Hurricane Maria made landfall, downing trees, homes and resulted in large a number of casualties.
