Climate change and the challenges facing small states
THIRTY-TWO of the Commonwealth's 53 member countries are small states, defined as countries with populations of less than 1.5 million people.
They range in size from micro-states, such as St Kitts and Nevis in the Eastern Caribbean with less than 50,000 people and Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique of the Lesser Antilles in the Windward Islands of the Eastern Caribbean with a population of 110,000 inhabitants, to countries like Botswana and Gambia in Africa.
These countries, without exception, are characterised by their extreme vulnerability in the areas of security, environmental disasters, limited human resources and a lack of adequate economic capital.
Despite the threat to the survival of these human-scale societies posed by unstable currencies, military-civil wars, poverty, HIV/AIDS, etc, climate change remains the single most important threat yet facing their prospects for economic development, peace and security and territorial existence.
What is more, the catastrophic impact of severe weather related to the rise in sea temperature, which is closely correlated with the increasing ferocity of hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons, which are appearing in unusual latitudes, is also associated with climate change. In other words, climate change holds no respect for any country in the global village.
In the last century, for example, mean global temperatures rose by 0.7 degrees Celsius with measurable impacts for physical and biological systems. The authority for climate change science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, predicts a further increase of between 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius by 2100 -- the socio-economic consequences of which would be devastating for many regions, particularly low-lying island states and Least Developed Countries (LDCs).
This means that a mean temperature rise of two degrees Celsius this century is not only inevitable given the trends in mounting greenhouse gas emissions and land use; but those most vulnerable will be the world's poor, wherever they live, and those inhabiting small-island developing states.
This profile in the extreme vulnerability of these states -- with serious implications for our own society -- means that climate change is fast becoming one of the critical international problems of the coming decades, and as such we can expect the cost to our societies of protecting vulnerable infrastructure, such as capital cities, airports, seaports and coastal roads to increase dramatically.
The same level of increase will attend the loss of our ecosystems, resulting in great harm to our fish stock, one of our main sources of protein; and for some small island states like Mauritius and the Seychelles, diminishing valuable foreign exchange. The Maldives, with close to 1,900 islands, have had to undertake significant expenditure in building sea defences and safe-zone resettlement for its people while the Cape Verde islands off the coast of Africa have had to build no less than four international airports at great cost as a result of desertification, which is driving the switch from farming to tourism.
By now it ought to be obvious that climate change is caused by human indulgence in production, consumption and lifestyle patterns that contribute significantly to the creation of toxic greenhouse gases; and the consequences for planet earth as we know it are the same whether one describes it from the point of view of an economist, an artist, a social historian, natural scientist or political practitioner.
Responding to the multi-faceted threats of climate change, therefore, will require small states pursuing developmental and sustainability policies that focus on the development of renewable technologies to help in shaping the transition from the fossil era to renewable energies. Especially in open trade-dependent small societies like ours, where energy price shocks tend to have a multiplier effect on the cost of living in the form of goods and services with the potential to trigger deepening political conflicts and social unrest, ways must be found to develop alternative energy sources and to effect domestic energy saving.
In addition, small states must push vigorously for diversification in farming by encouraging farmers to look to growing different crops away from those that are susceptible to hurricanes which are expected to increase in intensity and frequency in years to come. This alternative farming method must include crops that are resistant to dry weather and a comprehensive crop insurance scheme that would help to cushion the blow whenever our farmers are impacted by climate change.
Despite the high cost attached to these alternative methods to farming, there is no way around utilising technologies that would help to limit the extent of losses suffered due to extreme weather through the use of greenhouse technology and hydroponics.
In the final analysis, it helps to understand that climate change risks in small states do not only include sea-level rise, increase in severe weather disasters and water stress and changes in rainfall distribution. The risks also speak to food security, changes in temperature extremes and energy generation. And when we add poverty, inequitable land distribution, conflict, disease and debt to the equation, it means that many highly vulnerable countries — even in our own region — lack the adaptive capacity to cope and adjust.
There is clearly the need, then, for greater public education on this issue, especially given the real and present threat to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals posed by the consequences of climate change
