CLIMATE CHANGE MEANS: ADAPTATION AND MITIGATION

We need to make it clear that the climate change policy issue response is two tiered: mitigation and adaptation. You can’t have one without the other.  Right now we are concentrating in stopping the flooding that occurs all too frequently but what about the longer term issues: the changes in the building code and practices, saving the coral reefs, getting fresh water supplies, weaning ourselves off fossil fuels to get energy.  That’s the adaptation part and  we need the money to do so.  By we, we mean The Bahamas and all Caricom countries.  The Prime Minister Philip Davis says that the national debt is attributable 50 per cent to the  expenses of changes in climate.  These societies are unsustainable in Caricom at that rate.  The developed world must provide the monies therefore  for both: adaptation and mitigation.