Belize Joins Global Climate Talks at COP 30

The countdown to COP 30 is on, and this year, the global climate summit is heading deep into the heart of Brazil. From November tenth to twenty-first, world leaders, scientists, and activists will gather for the Global Climate Action Conference, themed “The Forest COP”, with a spotlight on the Amazon, the planet’s lungs. Belize will be represented at the summit, and ahead of his departure, News Five caught up with Dr. Colin Young, Executive Director of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center. We asked him how the recent devastation caused by Category Five Hurricane Mellisa in Jamaica is shaping the Caribbean’s message and strategy going into these high-stakes negotiations.

 

Dr. Colin Young, Executive Director, CCCCC

“What this does is two things, it demonstrates in a very visible raw and very emotional way what we have been saying in terms of the science, that as oceans get warmer and global temperatures get higher and we get closer to that one point five degrees, one of the impacts, the devastating impacts are these monster storms, these huge powerful hurricanes. In the last six years we have seen about four category five hurricanes. What that does is that it helps us to say that this is happening exactly as we predicted based on the science and so there is more urgency for the world to be able to take faster actions, less talk and faster actions in cutting emissions. The truth is you cannot adopt your way out of category five hurricanes. These are so strong that most houses and infrastructure will not stand up to those kind of hurricanes and the cost of building structures to withstand that are exorbitant. The second thing it brings is for the urgency for the developed world to deliver on their promise of making resources available for our countries to become more adaptive to climate change.”