More aggressive approach needed to climate change - Chanderpal
Stabroek News
July 11, 2002
Minister of Agriculture Navin Chanderpal says a more aggressive approach is needed towards the climate change issue which he said has already demonstrated the impact it could have on the economic well-being of Guyana.
“The irregular changes in the climate has created havoc with the economy. We are an agricultural-based economy so we must prepare ourselves to deal with the impacts,” Chanderpal told participants at the national consultation in support of the development of the Mainstream Adaptation to Climate Change (MACC) project on Monday.
The region has accessed a project development fund of US$250,000 from the World Bank/Global Environmental Facility to prepare this next stage of work on climate change in the region.
Regional coordinator of the project, Dr Ulric Trotz, said the MACC document will be completed by the end of August and the start up of the project is scheduled for January.
The minister said sea level rise was only one of the impacts of climate change and the effects on drainage and irrigation were also critical.
He stated that the capacity is required to predict those events, given the irregular patterns of the climate being observed.
He noted that science facilitated the access to the data but pointed out that information for the more short-term changes was needed.
One way of achieving this, he said, was to strengthen the hydrometereological office so that it would have the capacity to utilise information on global climatic conditions for its relevance to the Caribbean region which, in turn, would be used to address national concerns.
Chanderpal stated that because the MACC was a Caribbean project, where most activities occur on the low coastal plain, areas identified to be addressed were fisheries, agriculture and tourism.
He added that there was a need to get the sectoral agencies integrated with the process since these agencies are tasked with dealing with specific areas that will be impacted.
The one-day workshop on Monday sought to update the countries in the region on developments in the establishment of the CARICOM Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) and the progress of the Adapting to Climate Change in the Caribbean project.
A review of the Caribbean Programme for the Adaptation to Climate Change (CPACC) was done and the way forward examined.
Dr Trotz said whatever feeds into MACC must come from CPACC.
He said Guyana is addressing its concerns in dealing with climate change so that the national priorities would be included in the regional mechanism.
The regional coordinator stated that notwithstanding the time constraints there was a clear need for a more robust consultative process.
He said the process would be revised to ensure national and regional involvement in review, assessment and discussion through national consultations and regional sectoral consultations.
This is being done to broaden the constituency involved in climate change adaptation planning.
The minister recalled there was skepticism about global warming, sea level rise and climate change when CPACC was being considered.
He said even though the United Nations Convention on Climate Change had set clearly defined issues, the agencies identified to provide assistance were caught up in disputes.
“Now six years on, the effects of climate change have shown that the issues cannot be debated anymore but that we have to act to respond to changes,” he said.
He stated the impact of El Nino followed by La Nina in the late 1990s was disastrous.
He recalled that two days of intensive rainfall in the middle of the rice crop last year destroyed 10% of production and just afterwards there was an extended dry season which caused irrigation problems.