Earth Today | Curtain comes down on project to boost climate readiness
Published:Thursday | February 3, 2022 | 12:06 AM
THE FINAL full stop is shortly to be put on the years-long Adaptation Programme and Financing Mechanism (AP&FM) project from which an estimated 28,000 persons have been direct beneficiaries, in Jamaica’s efforts to enable readiness for the varied impacts of climate change.
“The AP&FM for the Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience is in its final stages of implementation. The project, which started in 2015, has done a range of activities to build Jamaica’s capacity to respond to climate change,” said Indi Mclymont-Lafayette, communications specialist for the project that was bankrolled to the tune of more than US$19 million by the Climate Investment Funds, through the Inter-American Development Bank, and with support from the Government of Jamaica.
The AP&FM has supported not only the incorporation of climate considerations into development planning by government agencies, but has also provided funding for climate change adaptation interventions in small and medium-size businesses, in addition to local communities.
Its achievements include the provision of technical inputs for the delivery of a National Spatial Plan – compiled from research and consultations that started in 2018 – and which looks at the long-term use of the island’s resources through a climate lens.
“Some (other) achievements include climate-smart agricultural initiatives, such as aquaponics and greenhouse farming. Significant attention was also paid to building rainwater-harvesting capacity, especially at the community level,” Mclymont-Lafayette noted.
Farmers in the Upper Rio Minho Watershed area of Clarendon benefited from a number of the rainwater-harvesting initiatives, while 15 communities in the area had vulnerability assessments done and climate change and disaster risk-reduction plans developed.
The next month is to see the project putting the final touches on rainwater-harvesting systems in that same area before the final project evaluation is done.
Adaptation interventions, meanwhile, are championed as critical for the survival of Caribbean small island states, given climate change impacts, including extreme hurricane events, the likes of which have caused billions of dollars in loss and damage over recent years.
The Global Commission on Adaptation noted in its 2019 report that prioritising readiness for climate change impacts was critical for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that “climate change could push more than 100 million people within developing countries below the poverty line by 2030”. It revealed also that “rising seas and greater storm surges could force hundreds of millions of people in coastal cities from their homes, with a total cost to coastal urban areas of more than $1 trillion each year by 2050”.
Beyond that, the commission’s report, titled ‘Adapt Now: A Global Call for Leadership on Climate Resilience’, said that in the absence of adaptation, there is considerable risk to water and food security.
“Without adaptation, climate change may depress growth in global agriculture yields up to 30 per cent by 2050. The 500 million small farms around the world will be most affected. The number of people who may lack sufficient water, at least one month per year, will soar from 3.6 billion today to more than five billion by 2050,” the report said.
“The costs of climate change on people and the economy are clear. The toll on human life is irrefutable. The question is how will the world respond: Will we delay and pay more, or plan ahead and prosper?” the report challenged.