Caribbean looks to Trudeau to put quest for climate change funding on the world’s agenda

Caribbean leaders meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week are hoping Canada will push their concerns — such as the profound threat they face from climate change — higher on the international agenda.

Trudeau is taking a break from domestic politics and his engagement on the Israeli-Hamas conflict to co-chair a three-day meeting with leaders of the Caribbean economic and political bloc — CARICOM.

St Lucia’s Prime Minister Philip Pierre, speaking to reporters on Friday, outlined the issues that will be on the agenda as Ottawa hosts the Canada-CARICOM summit through to Thursday.

Pierre, CARICOM’s lead on climate change, said the world is not on track to meet the goals of the 2016 Paris Agreement. That agreement commits countries to working toward limiting warming to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels.

The planet is inching closer to surpassing that target; the United Nations says the world already has warmed by at least 1.1 C.

According to the UN, global climate pledges have placed the world on track for a temperature rise of between 2.4 C and 2.6 C by 2100.

Pierre said he hopes one outcome of the summit is a message to the world, through Canada, that the region needs help to cope with the effects of climate change — more frequent and intense tropical storms, rising sea levels and hotter days.

The region, he said, needs Canada’s assistance to secure better financing terms from private lenders and multilateral development banks to help it adapt to climate change.

“So hopefully, our issues can be promoted by Canada to the international world,” Pierre said.

Trudeau’s office said in a news release this week’s summit will be an opportunity for countries to advance shared priorities.

“The leaders will also work to fight climate change and address its impacts in the Caribbean, including by exploring ways to improve access to financing for Small Island Developing States in the Caribbean,” the statement reads.

Haiti is also on the agenda

This is Trudeau’s second meeting with CARICOM heads of government since his trip to the Bahamas in February. As it did then, the worsening security, political and humanitarian crisis in Haiti will feature in the discussions in Ottawa this week.

Since Trudeau’s last meeting with Caribbean leaders, the UN Security Council has voted to authorize a mission to Haiti led by Kenya. The East African country agreed to send 1,000 troops to help restore law and order on the Caribbean island.

But the mission was put on hold when a Kenyan court granted an interim injunction after it was argued the mission was unconstitutional because it did not have the support of Kenya’s Parliament.

As Kenya works out its constitutional issues, Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, the current CARICOM chair, said work needs to continue on addressing the humanitarian crisis in Haiti.

Skerrit said Haiti will need a “Marshall Plan,” citing the strategic economic plan developed by allies to help rebuild Europe after the Second World War. Skerrit said the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and CARICOM need to come together for Haiti.

“Haiti needs us now more than ever,” he said.

Canada’s former Jamaican high commissioner Robert Ready said this week’s summit is about strengthening the ties between this country and the region through an overdue meeting. Canada has been focused on Asia, Europe and Latin America of late, but within the last three years Ottawa has pushed to re-engage with CARICOM, which represents a region that is home to 16 million people.

“While there are a lot of Canadians who travel south as tourists, I think both sides have tended in the past to take each other for granted,” said Ready, who now sits on the board of the Canada Caribbean Institute.