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Why silence about the Climate Conference in Poland?

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By Sir Ronald Sanders

(The writer is Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the United States and the Organisation of American States.  He is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London and Massey College in the University of Toronto.   The views expressed are his own.)

A statement may have been made one or more of the Caribbean countries that attended the Conference of the Parties (COP) on the disastrous effects of Climate Change in Katowice, Poland in early December, but if any statement was made it is nigh impossible to find it despite the considerable search engines on the internet.

Yet, the disastrous results of the Katowice Conference should be a renewed call to arms for all Caribbean island-states whose very existence is now closer to extinction than it has ever been.

In the face of the continued recalcitrance of the powerful states even to admit the existence of the harmful effects of Climate Change, and their downright refusal to take the necessary action to stop it, if there is a comatose condition among Caribbean representatives, it is understandable but not forgivable. 

What happened at Katowice in Poland, is nothing short of a death sentence for small island states.    

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Delegates to the conference went into the room with the full knowledge that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had called, categorically, in its October 2018 report, for radical structural transformation, particularly as the world is patently failing to hold global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.   The report showed that unless the global community brings emissions under control within 12 years, there will be no prospect whatsoever of achieving that goal.

Simply put, by the time a child born this year is 12 years old, Caribbean islands and low-lying costal areas will be confronting ravages to productive areas and habitats that could induce the flight of people from their homelands.

Ralph Regenvanu, foreign minister of Vanuatu, was belligerent. Noting that rebuilding and climate resilience costs are soaring from fiercer storms and rising seas, he is seeking to form a coalition of vulnerable nations prepared to sue fossil fuel companies to pay for damage linked to climate change.

He is making a telling point. It is not dissimilar to one made recently by Professor Avinash Persaud, an Economist and consultant to the Barbados Government.  Increasingly, small island states, which are the very least of the contributors to climate change and are its greatest victims, are being required to pay the cost of the loss and damage that are inflicted on them.  Persaud argues that “Islands and flood-prone places are being asked to pay premiums to be insured against future losses and damage of a climate change caused by others. This is asking the victim to pay by instalment. If our main response to human-made climate change is to try and make it easier for the victims to pay for it, the march of climate change will press on unimpeded”.

But at Katowice, rich countries prevented any movement on how to estimate financial contributions to support adaptation by vulnerable countries.  They simply don’t want to pay. 

The poorer nations rightly want estimates of climate finance to be additional to current development aid. They also want climate finance to be viewed more as a response to the loss and damage suffered by poor countries rather than as aid.

There is good reason for these “wishes” by the poor and vulnerable nations.  Without their fulfillment, existing foreign aid flows could easily be reclassified as a contribution to climate finance, leaving the actual amount of support unchanged.   This kind of behavior was obvious at the UN sponsored pledging conference for Caribbean countries devasted by 2017 hurricanes. 

The so-called “Katowice agreement” avoids the grave concerns about climate finance by not addressing them officially in the final agreement. Imagine that the one positive result of the meeting on the financing issue is that rich country negotiators agreed to “revisit” the issue of scaling up financial contributions in 2025.  In other words, they agreed to “talk” about it yet again – fiddling while Rome burns.   But, of course, it is not their “Rome”, and, in the minds of many of their negotiators, relocating a few million dislocated and displaced people from small islands is a cheaper option that paying compensation for the destruction of homelands and civilizations caused by climate change. 

The one hope in all this is that a National Climate Assessment in the United States, published, before the climate conference in Poland, concludes that the impacts of global climate change are already affecting the US, as clearly evidenced by the growing number of intense wildfire seasons, droughts, heatwaves, and floods that the country has been experiencing.   The report notes that these conditions will worsen unless urgent action is taken to curb greenhouse gas emissions.  Significantly, it states that annual average temperatures across the U.S. have risen by 1.8°F since the beginning of the twentieth century.

The costs for the U.S. are also high and rising.  Here are some examples: Rebuilding Puerto Rico’s power grid, which was destroyed by hurricanes Irma and Maria, is estimated to cost $17 billion; flooding in the Mississippi and Missouri river basins in 2011 caused an estimated $5.7 billion in damage; and the federal cost of fighting fires across the US ranged from $809 million to $2.1 billion per year between 2000 and 2016. The report says that by 2100, these costs could rise to hundreds of billions of dollars a year and could affect the U.S. economy “worse than the Great Recession did”.

Given the climate report on the U.S., there should be strong allies in the states and cities where the harmful effects of Climate Change have been felt and are not letting-up.  

Caribbean countries should stand-up, speak out and take a lead in mobilizing small states every where to join strong alliances into the decision-making councils and board rooms, globally in an unrelenting campaign for their collective survival.

The only solution to climate change is to stop it.

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In Other News

REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST

(CONSULTING SERVICES – INDIVIDUAL SELECTION)

 

OECS MSME Guarantee Facility Project

Loan No.: IDA-62670, IDA-62660, IDA-62640, IBRD-88830, IDA-62650

Assignment Title: Senior Operating Officer (SOO)

Reference No. KN-ECPCGC-207852-CS-INDV

 

The Governments of Antigua and Barbuda, Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines have received financing in the amount of US$10 million equivalent from the World Bank towards the cost of establishing a partial credit guarantee scheme, and they intend to apply part of the proceeds to payments for goods, and consulting services to be procured under this project. 

The consultant will serve as the “Senior Operating Officer (SOO)” for the ECPCGC and should possess extensive knowledge of MSME lending with some direct experience lending to Micro, small and medium-sized businesses, knowledge of the internal control processes necessary for a lending operation and the ability to design and implement risk mitigation procedures. The ideal candidate should possess an Undergraduate Degree from a reputable college or university, preferably in Business, Accounting, Banking or related field, with a minimum of 5 years’ experience in lending, inclusive of MSME lending. The initial employment period will be for two years on a contractual basis. Renewal of the contract will be subject to a performance evaluation at the end of the contractual period. The assignment is expected to begin on September 30th, 2021.  The consultant will report directly to the Chief Executive Officer of the ECPCGC.

The detailed Terms of Reference (TOR) for the assignment can be viewed by following the attached link below. 

 

https://bit.ly/3iVannm

 

The Eastern Caribbean Partial Credit Guarantee Corporation (ECPCGC) now invites eligible “Consultants” to indicate their interest in providing the Services. Interested Consultants should provide information demonstrating that they have:

  • An Undergraduate Degree from a reputable college or university, preferably in Business, Finance, Banking or related field; and
  • Minimum of 5 years’ experience in MSME lending. Applicants should also have:
  • The ability to design and implement risk management procedures 
  • Extensive knowledge of MSME lending with some direct experience lending to small and medium-sized businesses
  • Extensive knowledge of MSME banking operations
  • Knowledge of the internal controls necessary for a lending operation and the ability to design and implement risk management procedures
  • Experience developing and presenting information in public, including responding to questions in real-time
  • Experience lending to MSMEs located in the ECCU
  • Knowledge of marketing and communicating with the MSME sector
  • Ability to draft procedures to be used in a lending operation
  • Familiarity with the mechanics of a loan guarantee program
  • Exceptional written, oral, interpersonal, and presentation skills, and
  • Proficiency in the use of Microsoft Office suite.

The attention of interested Individual Consultants is drawn to Section III, Paragraphs 3.14, 3.16, and 3.17 of the World Bank’s Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers July 2016, [revised November 2017] (“Procurement Regulations”), setting forth the World Bank’s policy on conflict of interest. A Consultant will be selected in accordance with the Approved Selection Method for Individual Consultants set out in the clause 7.34 of the World Bank Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers. 

 

Further information can be obtained at the address below during office hours 0800 to 1700 hours:

Eastern Caribbean Partial Credit Guarantee Corporation

Brid Rock, Basseterre,

St. Kitts.

Expressions of interest must be delivered in a written form by e-mail by August 11th, 2021, to [email protected]. 

 

For further information, please contact:

Carmen Gomez-Trigg                                                            Bernard Thomas

Chief Executive Officer                                                          Chief Financial Officer

Tel: 868-620-8144                                                                  Tel: 869-765-2385

Email: [email protected]                                          [email protected]