Kingston, Jamaica. September 26th, 2011 - Vulnerable Caribbean islands will now be able to work more closely with the Pacific islands to address climate risks based on an agreement signed by the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP) recently.

“This memorandum of understanding has been a long time in the making but I am happy that we have finally done it,” said Dr Kenrick Leslie, Executive Director of the CCCCC at the signing ceremony held in Samoa.Director of SPREP, David Sheppard, shared similar sentiments.

“We have long agreed on the need for better collaboration but now we can do it,” he said shortly after signing the MOU. He explained that the MOU would help the islands to take more concrete actions and follow up on recommendations made at the end of the four day Lessons for Future Action Conference held in Apia, Samoa in May 2011.

The signing ceremony was held at the SPREP headquarters and Sheppard said that his organization was very happy about the collaboration as the CCCCC was a key organization in enacting action on climate change in the Caribbean. It provides policy guidance on climate change to the 15 countries in the Caribbean Community.

One of the activities under the agreement is for both entities to have a joint side event at the United Nations Climate Change meeting to be held in Durban, South Africa from November 28 – Dec 10, 2011. This climate meeting is the premier climate event where global policy decisions are taken re international climate agreements.

“Climate Change is a matter of national security that cuts across all sectors and the international community should support our efforts,” said Sheppard at the opening ceremony of the conference. He was referring to the Small islands attempts to raise awareness and call for strong climate actions to be included in the new international agreements to be discussed at Durban.

Both Sheppard and Leslie were optimistic about the value of the partnership stressing that they would be able to share areas of expertise between both organisations and also strengthen areas of weakness.

According to Dr Leslie in an interview with the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC) there were some areas that the CCCCC would be able to learn from SPREP.

“SPREP is a much older institution, and it is doing work in certain areas that we are not at this moment and therefore we want to take the advantage of using their expertise in guiding us in areas we are not at the moment and vice versa – we are doing work in certain areas they are not working on, so we can share with them,” he said.

The Small Island Developing States of the Caribbean, Pacific and Indian Ocean have been identified among the most vulnerable groups to the impact of climate change. Many of the islands are already trying to cope with rising sea levels, more intense and frequent hurricanes as well as droughts and other climate impacts.

It is expected that under the agreement as well the islands will be able to share experiences on adapting to climate change to better increase their ability to cope. The countries are lobbying the international community to take stronger action to deal with climate change to lessen the impact on their small economies as well as for their survival. (End/26/09/2011)

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