Belize Champions Climate Resilience and Youth Engagement

Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time, and this week, Belize is putting it front and center. The Government of Belize has launched its fourth annual Climate Week right here in Belize City. It’s a week packed with panel discussions, interactive booths, and meaningful conversations about how climate change is affecting us all. Day one kicked off with a youth engagement forum, giving young Belizeans a platform to speak up and get involved. Throughout the week, teams from the Forestry and Agriculture Departments will be on hand, showcasing the work they’re doing to protect our natural resources. There’s also a strong focus on Indigenous leadership and how communities can access climate financing to build resilience. Both Prime Minister John Briceño and Minister of Sustainable Development Orlando Habet were at today’s opening ceremony, signaling just how seriously the government is taking this issue. We’ll take you to the event and hear from some of the key voices leading the charge.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“I think most, there’s several things, several factors that we need to point out. One is awareness, and I think that more and more Belizeans are becoming aware, they’re living the challenges of climate change, but also to point out that the government is fully committed to be able to address some of these challenges. For instance, how we can become a more sustainable country. The issue of energy that has been in the minds of most people, as it is right now, just probably about two months or so ago, Belize opened bids for solar power opened the process of probably approving up to eighty megawatts of solar energy, all of that contributes to be able to reduce the carbon emissions in Belize. My concern or my cry international internationally has been that we did not create this problem. We do not continue to create to this problem. Actually, we are helping the planet.”

 

Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development

“We have expanded the area and got support from the private sector and other agencies to be able to host this event and to put in the boots for the blue zone, the green zone, and to have panels for discussion involving young people government, the private sector to see how we can all work together because as the speech is mentioned, myself, Prime Minister,  the Minister of Ambassador from Brazil, this is something that we all have to do together. The climate crisis is a global problem. And so we have to scale up our climate action, but also part of the reason that we are scaling up is because of our international commitments. NDC  one, then 2.0, 3.0 asks for greater ambition. In greater ambition, we have to put more towards climate action, however as you note that on Friday we will have a specific day just for climate finance. So it’s a climate finance forum because we can do a 2.0, NDCA stronger, potential for implementation, but if the financing is not there, then there is no implementation.”