Cayman to shape policies to reduce carbon footprint

| 31/12/2015 | 37 Comments

Cayman News Service(CNS): Following the historic climate change conference in Paris, the Cayman Islands will be reviewing its own carbon footprint in 2016 in an effort to adapt to the requirements of all nations to help reduce global warming. As a low lying nation on the front line of the consequences of a warming world, the minister and department head responsible for the local environment both said they would be seeking policy changes this year to help cut the islands’ greenhouse gas emissions.

“To date, actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change have not been a focus of national policy. This will need to change if we are to make any meaningful progress on the issues surrounding climate change,” said Department of Environment Director Gina Ebanks-Petrie.

Sea level rise, a direct consequence of global warming, is going to significantly impact small islands like Cayman in the next few decades unless the world takes the pledge to reduce global warming rates seriously, and given our own vulnerability, Cayman must make an effort to reduce its own negative contribution to the problem as well.

Wayne Panton the environment minister said that the Paris agreement would provide a guiding framework for the Cayman Islands.

“The treaty calls for a special report in 2018 on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C and that report could provide some important information for Cayman in terms of the measures needed to address the effects of climate change,” he said. “Prior to the Agreement, the Cayman Islands Government had planned a review of its National Energy Policy. The treaty will impact our efforts to refine the local framework and enable more avenues to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Cabinet recently took the decision to request that the United Kingdom include Cayman in its ratification of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (KP2), which runs until 31 December 2020. Under KP2 , the UK has a reduction target of 16% by 2020, compared with 2005 levels for emissions. Cayman is obligated to continue providing information to the UK on local measures to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change.

Government currently has a draft national climate change policy which together with the energy policy will guide the establishment of greenhouse gas reduction targets and ways of achieving those cuts and the necessary adaptations required at a local level. The draft National Climate Change Policy (2011) and the National Energy Policy will be updated in early 2016, the minister explained.

“Policies relating to energy security and climate change are intimately linked as they both seek to reduce our current reliance on carbon-based energy production and for the Cayman Islands, one is as essential as the other,” Panton added.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 21st Conference of the Parties in December resulted in the Paris Agreement, where 195 nations agreed to act on and invest in a low carbon, resilient and sustainable future. The deal attempts to offer protection to small low-lying islands such as Cayman by laying out plans to keep global warming to “well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

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Category: Land Habitat, Science & Nature

Comments (37)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    I say force cayman airways to use 100% renewable energy on its planes. Maybe solar panels with batteries or something..

  2. Anonymous says:

    Just FYI regarding the BS headline picture. Polar bears can swim up to 30 miles and regularly use dislodged ice to move from point to point instead of swimming when hunting. The sad faced polar bear in the picture isn’t floating to his/her doom, rather it’s very happy polar bear now wondering why the moron photographer messing it up’s hunt…

  3. Anonymous says:

    Can we make it illegal to have vehicles running in “idle” just to keep them airconditioned inside? Yesterday two big busses were sitting outside Tikki Beach with engines running, one had the drive in it sleeping, the other was empty and driver was chatting with other employees……..

  4. Anonymous says:

    All vehicle inspection must be brought back to Government and not the car dealers who will give crappy vehicles a pass because the vehicle belongs to a cousin of a friend.

    All vehicles must then be inspected for emission levels before receiving licensing/renewal

    What we have driving around on this Island, especially the dump trucks, taxis and busses, and the black stuff they blow out through their exhausts is beyond disgusting!

  5. Satirony says:

    Banning plastic water bottles would be a good start. America consumes 50 billion water bottles per year using 19 million barrels of oil in the process, and half of this plastic ends up on our beaches and roadsides it seems, killing marine and bird-life and turning Cayman into a giant trash heap.Whatever happened to water filters? I’ve never bought a bottle of water in my life, and never will. Tap water that’s passed through a carbon filter is cleaner than bottled water, in many cases. The filter just sits in my kitchen and “saves” me hundred’s of dollars a year. Easy as falling off a log!

    • Anonymous says:

      The number 1 thing the Government should do is force CUC to use alternative energy mainly solar. We could start by putting solar panels on all Government buildings. But dont think it will be cheap solar panels are not.

      • Anonymous says:

        Yes, the cost would be ridiculous and no-one would be willing to pay for it. So shut up with your fantasy. People are suggesting smaller more practical steps that could be done without great cost and every time you pipe up with the same crap. Next time why don’t you suggest a nuclear fusion plant or a wormhole to vacuum energy from an alien sun.

        • Anonymous says:

          One cannot compete with this type of ignorance. 3:10AM, You must hold a position as a CIG advisor, the typically uniformed kind. Extremely sad. Do you any data to back up your “Solar is too Expensive” malarkey, or are you just spewing pure propaganda for your CUC masters? SMDH at you.

          Meanwhile, in the REAL WORLD:

          “Deutsche Bank notes that total module costs of leading Chinese solar companies have decreased from around $1.31 a watt in 2011 to around $0.50/W in 2014. It says this was primarily due to the reduction in processing costs, the fall in polysilicon costs and improvement in conversion efficiencies.

          That represents a fall of around 60 per cent in just three years. Deutsche Bank says total costs could fall another 30-40 per cent over the next several years, with the greatest cost reductions are likely to come from the residential segments as scale and operating efficiencies improve.”

          • Anonymous says:

            Maybe you should tell them how long it will take them to make back the money it costs to buy solar panels. An try to remember that a lot of them work from pay day to pay day.

        • Anonymous says:

          So your suggestion is only for those wealthier people that can afford to pay for solar panels not for the average person. How typical.

  6. Anonymous says:

    Dear fellow enlightened contributors;
    Do not waste your breath trying to convince the AGW / “climate change” believers in the room. This fraud is now the newest religion on earth, so we all know what that means.

    Interestingly, the most staunch supporters are the supposed most educated among us – and often tend to ridicule the traditionally religious people of the world.

    You couldn’t make this shit up.
    Wait, actually … they did – and laughing all the way to the bank with it.

    – Whodatis

    • Anonymous says:

      So the environmental kooks have seized the reigns of industrial power, in addition to infiltrating the U.N., the science academies of every developed nation, and the top research institutes of North America? That just doesn’t seem very likely.

      • SwampCrab says:

        Why not? After all, the above mentioned are indeed the most corrupt entities in comparison to all of the rest of the world combined….

    • Anonymous says:

      Whodatis on this matter you have no clue of what you are talking about.

  7. Anonymous says:

    This should be an action item on the top 10 list to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: Cayman’s grocery stores to cease selling legumes of any kind, especially baked beans.

  8. UK Driftwood says:

    The only time this country will take global warming and the use of renewable engery is when an MLA or family member will get a finacial back harder gain

  9. Anonymous says:

    Anyone who thinks that global warming is a scam or a fraud clearly isn’t paying attention to present weather trends worldwide. Perhaps they can’t read but they should be able to see and hear. Watch global news stories!

    • Anonymous says:

      You said it yourself……….. weather TRENDS, otherwise known as cycles, such as the well-documented 40-year PDO and AMO cycles. It’s madness to look at a few years recent and attempt to extrapolate a conclusion; AGW proponents would have a lot more veracity if their warriors (IPCC) hadn’t been caught on numerous occasions creating fraudulent data.

      Yes, everywhere human beings live and gather, they ruin their environment; yes, there are many things we can and should do to improve our impact. Trying to control a gas for which the Earth would die without is a mission that is a great cash cow for the elite who are able to control legislation and lobbies, and by extension corporations.

  10. McCarron McLaughlin says:

    Yeah and they said Polar Bears were on the decline too and now their global population are at 5 times the levels of the 1950’s. Forget about this Global Warming crap as it’s just a another scam for the fat cats.

  11. Anon says:

    What is it with the famous ursus bogus picture?

  12. Anonymous says:

    Global warming is a fraud designed to rob you via global taxation worth trillions in taxation. All forms of energy and farming will be taxed via this fraud. And by the way, the picture used in this story is a typical fraud to lead to believe that the bear is somehow in danger. Polar bears can swim up to 30 miles and hunt primarily in the water and hop from ice berg to iceberg. Typical liberalism.

    • Anonymous says:

      Thanks for your professional opinion.

      • Anonymous says:

        looked at an interesting report designed by the UK professional based on research of soil samples…did you know that the entire North Sound was mangrove swamp some 2000-4000 years ago? Did you know that sea levels were 8 meters and 20 meters below the current levels based on said reports and that since the last major ice age sea levels have risen some 120 meters! Did you know that sea levels are projected to rise between .5 meters and 1.5 meters by 2100.

        An interesting map is included in the report that shows the effects of 1m,2m,3m,4m and 5m rises in Sea Level. I am ok until the 4 m mark and looking to buy some real estate at the 5 m mark! Anyways, it just worth noting that the much wanted canal front lots will be worthless in the very near future. Just look at the recent reports about Abby Way in Red Bay always under water. The problem is the water table is now too high so the water just sits but it is a conspire to keep up real estate values.

        Think about the way we finance houses with 30 year mortgages and being we are now in 2016 in 30 years it will be 2046 the seller of a house with a 30 year mortgage will bring them into 2075 and by that time.,,it cannot be sold again as it will be underwater literally. All these free hold canal lots by essences are being turn leaseholds will maybe 80 years to run in fact 14.5% of the buildings will not survive a 1m rise and if the upper range of the predictions hold true…some properties will have less say 50 years.

        What really should come as a shock is that CIG has this 2009 report and it says the airport is at risk and yet we are still building on the ground. I am not sure how long it will take to recoup the investment but if we have a 50 year lifespan on airport and seaport should we be building or building with those assumptions in mind.

        Maybe this is a contributing factor in the loss of values along with foreclosures !

  13. Anonymous says:

    The Dump is the major greenhouse gasses emitter in the Cayman Islands

    • Anonymous says:

      Probably after CUC.
      CUC make bucketloads of money and then the government will turn around and tax us for using their dirty, polluting power. This Carbon thing is a facade designed by big government to control innocent people. Go rot, I say.

      • Anonymous says:

        6:38 CUC could run most of their generators on LPG and reduce emissions by 80% with virtually no loss of output. It would also be cheaper but CIG won’t let them because burning diesel = tax revenue. Whether or not you believe in global warming (and I’m a sceptic) this is yet more complete BS. There will never, ever be a commitment by any politician or civil servant on these islands to any environmental improvements unless they can see a substantial kickback in it – get used to that because it ain’t going to change.

    • Anonymous says:

      Global Warming is a way for corrupt politicians to profit from the ignorance of the “educated” masses.

    • SwampCrab says:

      Apart from Alden and Crew right?

  14. PPM Distress Signal says:

    Yes and just how are we going to accomplish this miracle, certainly not by the Director of the DOE allowing some politically connected foreign corporation to pay into some government environmental fund to come here and cut off the tips of our precious coral to make eye lashes!

  15. Anonymous says:

    cayman is light years away from making any significant changes….we generate electricity like a third world back water…. and dump our garbage in a big pile in the nations capital……
    welcome to wonderland….

  16. Anonymous says:

    sounds like the usual ppm do nothing, soon come approach….time to make plans for a plan…..etc…zzzzzzzzzz

  17. Anonymous says:

    Here is an easy one to start with. End all travel perks on Cayman Airways for MLAs and those associated with Cayman Airways.

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