Premier Wayne Panton said Cayman stands ready “to help avoid or mitigate climate change crises” as he expressed concern over the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.
Panton, in a statement to the Cayman Compass, said it was “a sobering and frightening assessment of our planet’s future”.
The premier, who is also minister for sustainability and climate resiliency, agreed with the UN scientists on their findings “that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, oceans and land”.
“We see evidence of the damage caused by climate change all over the world and even here in the Cayman Islands. I was dismayed when I looked over the erosion of Seven Mile Beach last week. That singular issue has been caused by many factors, including bad policy and bad decisions, but is also undoubtedly attributable in part to changes in our climate,” he said.
The world’s leading scientists raised the alert level on 9 Aug., saying global warming was dangerously close to being out of control, necessitating deeper cuts in carbon and greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades.
Cayman has ignored the issue
The IPCC, in its sixth assessment report, placed the blame for the damaging environmental effects squarely on human activity.
The premier contended that for “far too long Cayman has been guilty of ignoring issues such as climate change and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels”.
We see evidence of the damage caused by climate change all over the world and even here in the Cayman Islands. I was dismayed when I looked over the erosion of Seven Mile Beach last week. – Premier Wayne Panton
However, he said the PACT government is taking a new approach to these issues.
“We now have a Ministry focused on sustainability and the reality and impacts of climate change on our Islands and how to best mitigate those,” he said, as he pointed out that a task force is looking at short- and long-term ways to deal with the coastal erosion on Seven Mile Beach.
He cautioned, however, “if the climate continues to warm, we – along with the rest of the world – face dire problems”.
Department of Environment Director Gina Ebanks-Petrie agreed, adding that the report “essentially confirms, with greater levels of confidence in the assessments, the serious consequences of continued climate change for small islands like ours”.
“This underscores the urgent need for the country to have a climate change strategy which addresses both options to adapt to the predicted impacts, and indeed to those impacts which we are already seeing, as well as options to mitigate and hopefully reduce the level of greenhouse gases emitted,” she added, in a statement to the Compass.
The report, she said, also makes it clear that while “the window to take action is rapidly closing, it is still within our collective power globally to limit the extent of climate change by taking concerted action to reduce and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions”.
As for climate change sceptics, Ebanks-Petrie said, the report “is unequivocal in attributing climate change to human influence”.
Changes planned to turn the tide
Building on this point, the premier said, Cayman also needs to do a better job of educating children and the wider public about the environment and the negatives effects of climate change on every aspect of our lives.
“While the IPCC report paints a scary picture, it also offers a ray of hope. The scientists behind the report say that catastrophe can be avoided if the world acts fast to cut emissions and greenhouse gases,” he said, adding that government will do this by revising the National Development Plan.
In addition to this, he said, government will be “protecting and enhancing our natural carbon absorbing environment, reducing and managing traffic, electrification of transport, levying stiffer fines for environmental violations and fully implementing the National Energy Policy”.
An increased duty on items that are unfriendly to the environment, he said, and changing laws to regulate construction in the dynamic beach zone, are among the actions planned.
“The ultimate environmental goal of the PACT Government is to build a legacy of sustainability and improved quality of life in the Cayman Islands through policy change, community action and the provision of sustainable infrastructure,” the premier said.
A lot of thought, he added, has been put into shaping a sustainable future for the Cayman Islands and consequently for the Caymanian people.
“We are now putting those thoughts into action and the further development of these actions will be done in consultation with the people of the country,” he said.
Read the full IPCC report here.
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As a small, low lying island we should all be concerned about this very real issue.
The sad reality is that nothing will improve while China is continuing to build coal powered generators and asserting their “right” to continue to increase their output of greenhouse gases until 2030.
We certainly need to take steps to mitigate the results of climate change on our Islands, but reducing our greenhouse gases and emissions is but a drop in the ocean, better we join efforts to persuade China, India and the U.S to reduce theirs as they are responsible for 70% of the carbon dioxide build up.
While it is true that the Caymans’ impact globally is but “a drop in the ocean”, reducing / eliminating climate change depends on each of us striving for net zero or less. The Caymans are just three small islands and maybe exerting control over a smaller area is easier.
Let’s work immediately towards net zero impact starting at home and then we can work on the rest of the world, “China, India and the US” with a clean conscience. Right now, the Caymans are walking happily in the path of those high impact countries and many here see this path as “development”. The direction that this type of development has taken provides short term gratification at the cost of long term self-preservation and that choice is turning against us as we speak.
If we looked at our per capita impact, we would be right up there with the worst culprits. Energy policies need to be addressed aggressively and that is Government business, not private enterprises’. Government needs to heavily subsidize solar energy installations, regardless of the impact on established imported fossil fuel energy enterprises. Nationalize them! God knows we don’t need to import the sun, one of our most valuable national assets. We are working against the clock getting our own house in order. The sooner we can achieve net zero at home, the sooner Caymans can legitimately have influence on the rest of the world because it will have something to teach.