Outcome of climate change workshop a mystery

(CNS): Government Information Services issued a press release Friday about a recent workshop on climate change and health. The release said public and private stakeholders plan to collaborate on a “special climate change and health chapter to go into the draft National Climate Change Policy”, but gave no indication what that is or what it means. The release noted that around 50 people from public sector agencies, the private sector and professional bodies attended the two-day session organised by the PAHO/WHO and noted some of the topics but revealed no specifics.

Pan American Health Organisation consultant Nasolo Thompson said that by 2030 the organisation envisions all small island developing states will have health systems resilient to climate change.

Countries are also expected to reduce their carbon emissions “to protect the most vulnerable from climate risks, and to deliver large-scale health benefits in carbon-emitting countries”, she said in the release, but how that will be achieved was not revealed.

Representatives did state that the health sector must also reduce its carbon footprint, including making healthcare facilities more resilient to disasters and environmentally friendly.

Avalon Porter of the National Weather Service presented on the impact of climate change on the Cayman Islands’ weather patterns. The details of that presentation were not revealed either, though general climate reports from the NWS have begun to indicate that in addition to rising temperatures, weather is becoming increasingly erratic in Cayman as it is around the world.

Officials said the workshop covered other topics, such as the impact of climate change on environmental determinants of health, building climate resilient health systems, the Action Plan on Health and Climate Change for the Caribbean, and the importance of an inter-sectoral approach to climate change. However, there was no indication what policies the current administration plans to adopt to help with those issues.

The release said that Health and Environment Minister Dwayne Seymour spoke at the event and said that rising temperatures and related catastrophes of recent years were evidence of the need for continuing the multi-sectoral action that marked the creation of the draft National Climate Change Policy.

However, Seymour is deputy chair of the committee formed by the government with the intention of gutting the conservation law. There has been no indication from the minister since he took office that he has any understanding of, or interest in, the climate crisis or the need to take drastic policy action to save the Cayman Islands from coastal erosion and the impending sea-level rise.