Caribbean Trade Law and Development

Category: Paris Agreement

Human Rights in the context of the International Climate Change Agenda
Stefan Newton, Guest Contributor

Stefan Newton

In her address to the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Prime Minister of Barbados, the Hon. Mia Mottley, abandoned a scripted speech and made a passionate appeal to United Nations (UN) Member states to make good on their commitments to climate change under the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC). She urged States to accelerate mobilizing the necessary funding for climate adaptation and mitigation under The Green Climate Fund.

In thinly veiled remarks, she criticized the current position of the United States of America (USA) by refusing to acknowledge the reality of climate change, noting “For us it is about saving lives. For others it is about saving profits”. It is well known by now that the USA has regrettably withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement: which builds upon the UNFCCC and for the first time brings all nations into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects, with enhanced support to assist developing countries to do so.

Moreover, the Prime Minister pointed to the need for UN Member States to recognize that “mighty or small we must protect each other in this world”. In closing her speech, she appealed to the international community to exercise empathy and care for those States and their citizens who are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. I humbly submit that this is perhaps the most significant speech given by a Barbadian leader to the United Nations, as it impinges on Barbados’ very survival as a nation State. Indeed, if climate change ambitions are not met, Barbados and its citizens will face very certain demise due to the effects of climate change.

Climate Change is a Human Rights Problem

While climate change is most often viewed as an environmental problem, it is also very much a human rights problem. Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and former High Commissioner for Human Rights, has described climate change as “probably the greatest human rights challenge of the 21st century”.

Explicit mention of human rights is now being made in international climate agreements. The Preamble to the Paris Agreement to the UNFCCC calls for all States, when acting to address climate change, to “respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights”. The World Bank Report on Human Rights and Climate Change highlights the relevancy of international human rights law to climate change by linking particular social and human impacts of climate change to special human rights standards under international human rights treaties, thereby confirming human rights impacts. For example, the right to life is the most fundamental human right and well enshrined in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

A number of observed and projected effects of climate change will pose direct and indirect threats to the human right to life. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects with high confidence an increase in people suffering from death, disease and injury from heat waves, floods, storms etc. Equally, climate change will affect the right to life through an increase in malnutrition, cardio- respiratory morbidity and mortality related climate change effects.

Despite the clear human rights implications of failure to act to combat climate change, the international community is not “grasping the baton firmly” enough through decisive policy actions to reach the ambitions of the climate change agenda. The USA- Trump led administration seems to be a lost cause with its view that climate change is a fiction. Heeding Prime Minister Mottley’s call to climate action will most likely be viewed by them as a mere courtesy, not an obligation. However, it can be soundly argued that Prime Minister Mottley’s urging of States to protect each other from the effects of climate change, are not merely aspirational or appeals to international consciousness, but are linked to and grounded in legally binding international human rights principles.

Legal Link between Human Rights and Climate Change

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has set out the essentials of the legal dimensions link between Human Rights and Climate Change. International Human Rights principles to respect, protect and fulfill the human rights of all people without discrimination gives rise to a wide range of duties for State in acting on climate change. I will touch on three.

First, under these principles is the duty to mitigate climate change and to prevent its negative human rights impacts. Failure to take affirmative action to prevent human rights harms caused by climate change, including foreseeable long-term harms, breaches this obligation. Second is the duty to ensure that all persons have the necessary capacity to adapt to climate change. Falling under this duty States must ensure that appropriate adaptation measures are taken to protect and fulfil the rights of all persons, particularly those most endangered by the negative impacts of climate change e.g. small islands, riparian and low-lying coastal zones. Third, under core human rights treaties, States acting individually or collectively are obliged to mobilize and allocate the maximum available resources for the progressive realization of economic, social and cultural rights, as well as the advancement of civil and political rights and the right to development. The failure to adopt reasonable measures to mobilize available resources to prevent foreseeable climate change harm breaches this obligation.

Incorporating Human Rights into Climate Change Policy Discussions

Besides recognizing the legal implications of international human rights law as it pertains to climate change, Caribbean policy makers should also recognize the value added of incorporating human rights into discussions around climate change policy.

Among other things, a focus on human rights law may serve to locate policy within the framework of internationally agreed obligations and acceptance of certain goods, interests or goals as rights. This has the effect of establishing a hierarchy of importance among policy goals, helping to ensure that human rights are not traded off among interests lacking that status. Simply put, human rights place people before profits. This is critical as more firms and investors enter the Caribbean market whose activities may have climate and environmental impacts.

Additionally, human rights offer a normative and institutional framework for strengthened accountability and international co-operation for those responsible for adverse impacts of climate change. It may be argued that states should be encouraged to take climate action on this basis and do more in their capacity to assist and contribute to the financing of climate adaptation programs. This might be a useful bargaining chip in the realm of international relations and negotiations. For small developing states, such accountability can be used as a tool of moral suasion against large carbon emitting States like the USA which have retreated from global actions on climate change, or to spur States who are already implementing climate action targets to redouble their efforts.

Diagonal Environmental Rights

Further to policy, human rights law has an incredible potential to fill in a missing legal gap present in the international legal framework addressing climate change. The carbon emissions from large industrial States have a disproportionate impact on small lesser emitting States. Citizens of small developing States are thus marginalized and face aggravated vulnerability to human rights impacts from climate change. Yet currently there exists no formal legal mechanism for citizens to claim climate justice against large states responsible for impacting on and violating their human rights. This is referred to a Diagonal Environmental Rights; a term coined by John Knox the United Nations Independent on Human Rights relating to a safe, healthy and sustainable environment. Without going into the theory of a State’s extra-territorial human rights obligations, and proving causation, I submit that the ability to claim climate justice is well founded in the principles of international law.

As previously stated, no formal international diagonal environmental rights legal mechanism exists. Given the state of geo- political madness that has taken hold of multilateralism, I also do not see one being created and implemented by UN Member States. As the experience of the Paris Agreement has shown, it is a challenge just to get a critical mass of countries- let alone all countries- to participate in an international environmental agreement.

Therefore, the greatest hope is that existing international human rights mechanisms, such as the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACHR), and domestic courts are flexible enough to accommodate climate change litigation. There has been jurisprudence emerging from domestic courts that successfully incorporates rights-based arguments to climate change e.g. Pakistan in the case of Leghari v Federation of Pakistan.

Albeit these claims were made in the context of litigation by citizens against their own State for failing to respond to climate change. Nevertheless, such cases do much to add shape and contour to this emerging body of climate justice jurisprudence. They set precedents on which international, and broader litigation may find success.

Stefan Newton is a graduate of the University of the West Indies Faculty of Law. The views reflected here are entirely his own.
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October 4, 2018
IMO Member Countries adopt pathway to reduce shipping carbon footprint
Alicia Nicholls

Member countries of the United Nations specialised agency charged with regulating the shipping industry, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), adopted the first greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction framework for the shipping industry. This decision came at the 72nd session of the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) held in London from April 9-13.

The Initial Strategy adopted by IMO member countries has set a target of halving greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from ships by 2050 vis-a-vis emissions levels in 2008. This move brings the shipping industry closer in line with the goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement signed by over 190 countries in 2015, but to which the shipping industry (like the aviation industry) is not bound.

Some 80% of the volume of global trade is carried by ships. The phenomenon of mega-ships has seen a doubling in container ship capacity, and improvements in engine efficiency have increased the ability to travel longer distances in shorter time. However, the industry is estimated to account for 2-3% of global GHG emissions, including carbon dioxide and sulphur. A study entitled “Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Global Shipping: 2013-2015” found that CO2 and other emissions from ships were increasing, despite increases in efficiency. Aside from the very real climate impact, emissions from ships have public health risks for persons who live on or near the coast.

So what was decided?

Under the Initial Strategy, IMO States agreed:
- To reduce total annual GHG emissions from international shipping by at least 50% compared to 2008
- The peak and decline of GHG shipping emissions completely by the end of the century
- To reduce the carbon intensity of ships through implementation of further phases of the energy efficiency design index for new ships
- A working group will develop a program of follow-up actions to the Initial Strategy, and will consider ways to reduce shipping GHG emissions in order to advise the committee and will report at the next session of the MEPC in October 2018
- The Initial Strategy is to be revised by 2023.
As noted by the IMO, achievement of these targets will require continued innovations in shipping design and technology to maximise energy efficiency and decarbonisation through use of alternative and renewable energy sources.

Agreement on the Initial Strategy did not come easy and reflects a compromise. Small Island Developing States, China and the European Union for example, had advocated for a more ambitious emissions reduction target of at least 70%, which scientists argue would put the sector more on track to meeting the Paris Agreement goal to limit global temperature increases to well-below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Others like the US, Saudi Arabia and Brazil had argued for lower targets.

Some environmental groups have posited that the compromise target of 50% is not enough to bring shipping emissions in line with the target set out by the Paris Agreement.

Nonetheless, the Initial Strategy is an important milestone as, after years of delay, it represents the first pathway forward for reducing the shipping industry’s carbon footprint. In March this year, a mandatory data collection system for fuel oil consumption of ships also came into force.

The full IMO press release may be viewed here.

Alicia Nicholls, B.Sc., M.Sc., LL.B., is an international trade and development consultant with a keen interest in sustainable development, international law and trade. You can also read more of her commentaries and follow her on Twitter @LicyLaw.
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April 17, 2018
COP23: Five Negotiation Priorities for Small Island Developing States (SIDS)
Alicia Nicholls

In about a week’s time, delegates from over 190 countries will convene in Bonn, Germany for the 23^rd Conference of the Parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). During this round of climate negotiations, which will last from November 6-17th, the parties will continue work on implementation guidelines for the Paris Climate Change Agreement signed at COP21 in December 2015.

Despite United States’ President Donald Trump’s statement in June that the United States would be withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, there is some cause for optimism that this year’s COP negotiations will bear fruit. For the first time, a small island developing state (SIDS), the Republic of Fiji, has assumed the presidency of COP and brings to this task first-hand experience from the front lines of the climate change battle.

Secondly, recent natural disasters worldwide have brought increased international attention to the devastating effects of climate change and the need for urgent action on reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. This point was well-made by President of Fiji, Mr. Frank Bainimarama, who stated at a Pre-COP Ministerial Meeting held on October 17 in Fiji that:

“We can no longer ignore this crisis. Whether it is fires in California, Portugal and Spain. Flooding in Nigeria, India and Bangladesh. The dramatic Arctic melt. Ice breaking off the continent of Antarctica. The recent hurricanes that devastated the Caribbean and the southern United States. Or the hurricane that has just struck Ireland and Scotland – the tenth hurricane of the Atlantic season this year. It’s hard to find any part of the world that is unaffected by these events.”

Thirdly, except for the US, political will among the world’s most powerful nations has coalesced on the side of climate action. The 19 other G20 countries reaffirmed their “strong commitment” to the Paris Agreement, calling it “irreversible” in their Summit Declaration following the Hamburg meeting in July.

Below are five key likely priorities for SIDS as they go into the negotiations:
1. Scaling up Climate Finance to SIDS
At COP15 in 2009, developed countries committed to jointly mobilise USD 100 billion annually by 2020 to meet the mitigation and adaptation needs of developing countries. According to an OECD study, climate-related concessional finance has increased in both absolute terms and as a percentage of total concessional development finance, however annual commitments for 2014 were still 20% of the USD100 billion goal.

SIDS often find it difficult to attract private financial inflows for development purposes due to their small size and economies, and current financing levels do not meet their current needs. Moreover, current graduation criteria have made some middle and upper income SIDS, like those in the Caribbean, ineligible for certain types of concessional financing.

Pledged contributions, whether to the Green Climate Fund or otherwise, also do not necessarily always lead to timely disbursement, and there is the need for guidelines and protocols for incorporating the Adaptation Fund established at COP7 into the Paris Agreement’s framework.

Finding innovative and effective ways to attract and increase financial flows, including from both public and private and bilateral and multilateral sources, will be key. For example, Fiji became the first developing country to issue a sovereign green bond, with technical support from the World Bank, to support the country’s mitigation and adaptation efforts.
1. Loss and damage
Loss and damage was one of the most contentious topics in the negotiations leading up to the Paris Agreement and was strongly lobbied for by SIDS and LDCs as they are the least culpable but most vulnerable to the harshest impacts of climate change. The concept recognises that there is some irreversible damage which cannot be avoided through mitigation and adaptation strategies.

The Paris Agreement has recognised the concept of ‘loss and damage’ as a distinct concept of climate action and has made the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage permanent. It, however, does not deal with liability or compensation, something which developed countries were adamant they did not wish to be included. The softer language used in Article 8, which, inter alia, itemises areas for cooperation and facilitation, is reflective of these developed country concerns.

The costliness of this year’s Atlantic hurricane season is an important background against which SIDS should call for greater discussion on concretely addressing loss and damage, including the successful launch of the Clearing House for Risk Transfer which is slated to take place at COP23.
1. Adaptation and Mitigation
Developed countries’ continued and increased support will be necessary to assist SIDS in implementing national climate action plans, policies and projects in order to build climate resilience. This support for adaptation and mitigation includes not just financial support, but technology transfer and capacity building and technical assistance.

Certain groups within societies are particularly vulnerable to climate change, including women and children, the disabled and indigenous and rural communities. As such, the COP23 negotiations will involve operationalizing the Gender Action Plan and the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platforms.
1. More ambitious NDCs
Some 163 parties have already submitted their Nationally Determined Contributions which outline their emission reduction targets toward meeting the goal set out in Article 2 of the Paris Agreement of keeping average global temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius. These NDCs may be found at the interim NDC registry.

However, the May 2016 synthesis report on the aggregate effect of INDCs showed that a higher level of ambition will be needed in order to reach the goal in Article 2.

SIDS will want all parties to communicate to more ambitious NDCs after 2018 in order to meet the temperature goals in the Agreement and in keeping with the Article 4(3) commitment of communicating successively progressive NDCs.
1. Preparations for Facilitative Dialogue 2018
The Facilitative Dialogue which will take place in 2018 will be the first initial opportunity under the Paris Agreement to take stock of parties’ collective progress in a transparent manner towards meeting the Agreement’s long-term goal and inform the preparation of NDCs. It will be a precursor to the Global Stock Take, the first of which will take place in 2023 and will occur every five years thereafter.

The Facilitative Dialogue 2018 will be launched at COP23 and parties will need to organise and decide on the procedures, events and expected outcomes in time for its convening. The President of Fiji, who must be commended on his country’s excellent work on preparations for COP23 to date, has indicated that these talks will approached on the principle of ‘talanoa’, a Pacific concept which values inclusive, participatory and transparent dialogue.

A copy of the negotiating agenda for COP23 (current as at this date) may be viewed here.

Alicia Nicholls, B.Sc., M.Sc., LL.B., is a trade and development consultant with a keen interest in sustainable development, international law and trade. You can also read more of her commentaries and follow her on Twitter @LicyLaw.
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October 29, 2017
Climate Change, the Caribbean and US-Caribbean Strategic Re-engagement (HR4939)
Photo credit: Pixabay

Alicia Nicholls

Much of the attention on United States’ President Donald Trump’s chaotic first week in office has been on his temporary, but draconian ban on all refugees and on immigrants and nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries. However, his actions against the environment are just as concerning, particularly for Caribbean small island developing states (SIDS) which are suffering from the adverse effects of climate change. Lest one mistakenly thinks this is a Caribbean or SIDS problem alone, President Trump’s anti-climate action stance further endangers those communities in the US which are already being threatened by climate change.

In this article I outline some of President Trump’s anti-environmental actions taken within his first full week in office, and argue that Caribbean countries have a good case to make for why it is in the US’ vital national interests for the Trump administration to reverse its potentially disastrous anti-climate action course before it is too late. I also posit that the newly signed US-Caribbean Strategic Engagement Act of 2016 (HR4939) provides a possible mechanism for US-Caribbean climate change action and that the omission of climate change as an identified priority for US-Caribbean cooperation would be inimical to the objectives of the Act.

President Trump’s Anti-Environmental Actions thus far

President Trump sees an inherent incongruity between promoting climate action and fomenting US job creation and energy independence. As warned by a Sierra Club report released during the presidential campaign, the former businessman would be (and currently is) the only world leader to deny the science and seriousness of climate change.

Mr. Trump had even tweeted in November 2012 that the global warming concept was a “hoax invented by the Chinese” to make US manufacturing noncompetitive. While he later claimed the tweet had been a joke, what is not a joke, however, are the several executive actions Mr. Trump has signed just in a week to reverse the climate action policies of his predecessor, now former President Barack Obama. In the US’ Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) submitted in 2015, President Obama had pledged to cut US emissions by 2025 by 26-28 Percent from 2005 Levels.

During the presidential campaign Mr. Trump had clearly stated his intention to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Agreement, in which parties aim, inter alia, to “keep a global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels” and (at the insistence of SIDS) to “pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius”. As at the time of writing this article, news reports are stating that Mr. Trump will shortly sign an executive order formally withdrawing the US from the Agreement, which President Obama had ratified in 2016 through executive action.

While withdrawing his country from the Agreement will not be as straightforward as one may think, there are three ways in which Mr. Trump can basically undermine the Agreement’s objectives. Firstly, he can refuse to honour the emissions’ targets set by President Obama by cutting environmental regulations such as mileage and emissions standards for cars, and increasing US domestic fossil fuels drilling. Second, he can refuse to participate in any international climate action through, among other things, avoiding participation in future climate talks and refusing to honour global climate finance commitments made by the previous administration. Thirdly, he can direct that funding be cut for climate research and undermine the work of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in other ways. As the US is the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, these actions would be a significant blow to global climate action efforts.

President Trump’s nominee for Energy Secretary, former Texas Governor, Rick Perry, and for EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt are both climate change deniers. In fact, Mr. Pruitt, had filed 14 law suits against the EPA while serving as Oklahoma’s Attorney-general, while Mr. Perry had once vowed to abolish the same agency he will now lead.

Mr. Obama’s Climate Action Plan had focused, inter alia, on deploying clean energy, cutting US emissions, cutting energy waste in homes and businesses, preparing the US for the impacts of climate change, and leading international action on climate change.Mr. Trump’s America First Energy Plan, which has replaced the Climate Change page on the Whitehouse.gov website, speaks of eliminating President Obama’s Climate Action Plan and Waters of the US Rule, reviving the US’ coal industry, and increasing fossil fuel drilling.

Within the first week of taking office, President Trump has signed executive orders which will make the once considered dead and buried Keystone XL Pipeline and the Dakoka Access Pipeline (DAPL) once more realities, to the chagrin of environmental activists. Mr. Trump has signed presidential memoranda streamlining, permitting and reducing regulatory burdens for domestic manufacturing and also signed an executive order expediting environmental reviews and approvals for high priority infrastructure projects.

Upon his taking office, the climate change page from the Whitehouse.gov website was unceremoniously scrubbed. References to climate change on various other US government sites have been erased. Perhaps more worryingly are the gag orders reportedly placed on employees in various government agencies, including the EPA, from engaging with the Press or the public. A report by the Guardian further states that the Trump administration is now requiring studies or data from EPA scientists to undergo review by political appointees before they can be made public. It has been reported that some scientists have been backing up climate data. US agencies are among some of the most important sources of climate-related data, which are critical for monitoring climate patterns and for formulating evidence-based climate action policies.

Previous US-Caribbean Climate Change Cooperation

Caribbean countries are now faced with a climate-sceptic US president (for the next four years at least) at a time when the window for limiting the global temperature increase to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is closing. While there are legitimate criticisms that can be levelled at the Obama Administration over things like its treatment of Caribbean offshore financial centres and its failure to compensate Antigua in its long-running US-Antigua Gambling World Trade Organisation (WTO) dispute, that administration was undoubtedly an important friend for Caribbean countries in the global fight against climate change because the Obama administration understood that the US and the entire planet was at risk.

Not only had US cooperation been crucial in the lead up to, and during the COP21 negotiations, but President Obama’s early ratification of the Paris Agreement by executive action had paved the way for the historic Agreement’s early entry into force. President Obama had also pledged $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund set up by developed countries in 2010 to assist developing countries with their adaptation and mitigation efforts, and from which Caribbean countries also would benefit. He had transferred $500 million last year and transferred an additional $500 million installment ahead of schedule just three days before leaving office. President Trump is unlikely to honour the remaining $2 billion promised.

Caribbean countries also benefited from USAID funding for climate change adaptation projects. The future of such aid is doubtful under President Trump. Indeed, my own personal search of the USAID website, while conducting research for this article, showed that some of the pages on that agency’s climate change funding initiatives have been deleted.

Why should the Trump Administration care about climate change?

President Trump sees climate change action as inimical to US national economic and security interests, but this is not the case for the reasons outlined below:

(a) Climate Change is affecting US communities

The US itself has not been spared the ravages of climate change and Mr. Trump’s inaction on this issue will destroy the very American businesses, jobs and lives he claims he wishes to protect. Many of the US’ major coastal cities, whether it is New York, Miami or Los Angeles, would be ravaged by sea-level rise and by more intense storms. The devastation of Hurricane Katrina (2005) and Super Storm Sandy (2012), for example, caused billions of dollars in damage, destroying lives and infrastructure. There has also been an increase in heat waves, tornadoes and other extreme weather events.

A New York Times article reports on findings of a study which showed that 31 coastal communities in Alaska were at an “imminent risk of destruction”, some of which will be uninhabitable by 2050. It is why some US states, regardless of what is happening at the federal level, have formulated their own climate action plans. California, the most populous and second largest state by land area in the Union, announced that it would “cut emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030”, an ambitious target.

(b) US losing out on renewable energy and environmental goods market

Moreover, despite Mr. Trump’s predilection for fossil fuels drilling, renewable energy is the way that the world is going. If the stated goal of the Trump administration is “America first” and to promote American jobs and manufacturing, then he should be concerned that the US will be missing out on a growing billion dollar industry. A Bloomberg report notes that not only is solar the fast growing energy sector, but China has overtaken the US and Germany in 2015 as world leader in solar generation. There are also opportunities in trade in environmentally-friendly goods and services, which the US will be missing out on.

(c)Climate Change threatens Stability of US Third Border

Successive US administrations have recognised that a secure and politically and economically stable Caribbean (a region which President George W. Bush had called the US’ ‘Third Border’) serves US national security and geostrategic interests. The impacts of climate change strike at the heart of Caribbean countries’ stability and security, given their vulnerability to weather-related shocks.

The economic effects of climate change on the Caribbean have already been competently outlined by various studies, including a study by Sebastian Acevedo Mejia and published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) entitled Gone with the Wind which found that “that hurricane damages [in the Caribbean] are considerably underreported…with average damages potentially being three times as large as the reported average of 1.6 percent of GDP per year”. One only needs to recall the devastation inflicted by Hurricane Ivan on Grenada (2004), Tropical Storm Erika on Dominica (2015) or Hurricane Matthew on Haiti (2016) to see that the human and economic toll of climate change is not textbook theory but lived reality.

Suffice it to say, all of the major industries upon which Caribbean economies are based, whether it is tourism, agriculture or manufacturing, are being affected, by climate change in some manner. Therefore, if it is recognised that an economically and socially strong “Third Border” is vital to US national security interests, it will be against the Trump administration’s interests to be aloof to the impact of climate change in the region.

(d) Climate Change Refugees

As someone who has railed against immigration, President Trump should be cognisant that climate change-related disruption, whether through sea level rise or storm devastation, will increase the flow of immigrants to US borders. Concern about the possibility of increased climate refugees was recognised by the Obama administration back in 2016.

The capitals (and economic centres) of most Caribbean countries are coastal cities and towns, while the majority of the populations of many of the small island states is located within 2 miles of the coast. Displacement of these populations as sea levels rise is likely. Caribbean people have long seen the US as a land of opportunity and it is not implausible to think that ‘the land of the free’ will be one of the main destinations for any Caribbean climate refugees.

US-Caribbean Strategic Engagement – HR4939

Fortuitously, thanks to a bipartisan effort in Congress and quick signature by former President Obama, there is a mechanism under which US-Caribbean climate change cooperation may be effected. Recognising that strong US-Caribbean relations are key to US security and other interests, the US-Caribbean Strategic Engagement Act of 2016 (HR4939) declares that it is the policy of the US to increase engagement with the Caribbean through four prongs: Caribbean governments, the Caribbean diaspora community, the private sector and civil society. The Act’s scope is limited to those Caribbean countries which are beneficiaries of the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative.

The Act’s objectives are multifocal and include enhancing diplomatic relations, increasing economic cooperation, supporting regional economic, political and security integration efforts, inter alia. I would submit that for the reasons stated above, any attempt at promoting economic cooperation and development and increasing security in the Caribbean would be incomplete without including climate change as one of the priority areas.

One of the most critical aspects of the Act is that it provides concrete timelines for follow-up action, which is important as there was no indication that the US-Caribbean relationship is a priority for the Trump administration. It mandates the incoming Secretary of State, in coordination with the Administrator of USAID, to submit not later than 180 days after the date of the Act’s enactment a multi-year strategy for US engagement to support interested Caribbean nations. It outlines broad guidelines which must be included in the strategy and I believe Caribbean countries should proactively engage the administration on what they believe to be priorities.

The incoming Secretary of State will be mandated to annually brief the appropriate congressional committees on Department of State on efforts to implement the strategy. President Trump will also be required to submit a report on progress made toward implementing the strategy to the appropriate congressional committees no later than 2 years after the strategy has been submitted.

Naturally, this Act just outlines the broad framework and it will be up to the stakeholders I just mentioned to ensure that the Act achieves its objectives.

Conclusion

US-Caribbean Climate Change Action cooperation is a mutually important imperative and the US-Caribbean Strategic Engagement Act of 2016 provides an opportunity through which to do so. Caribbean leaders, our diplomatic representatives and other allies in Washington DC should consistently make the case that continued US-Caribbean climate change action is key to US-Caribbean strategic re-engagement, and further, that climate change inaction undermines the security and threatens the economic, social and even political stability of the US’ third border, which has national security implications for the US homeland.

The Caribbean diaspora community in the US, one of the four partners recognised under the Act, will be important partners in making this case as many would have been witnesses (whether firsthand or through family members back in the region) of the devastation climate change is having on the region. The Caribbean also has other allies in this fight such as those companies which have made a niche out of renewables and other environmentally-friendly goods and services, and those states like California which recognise the need for continued climate action by the federal government for their own survival.

By no means am I suggesting that convincing the Trump administration that climate change is a threat to be taken seriously will be an easy feat. However, I do believe that both the US and the Caribbean have too much to lose from any climate change inaction for the effort not to be made.

Alicia Nicholls, B.Sc., M.Sc., LL.B., is a trade and development consultant with a keen interest in sustainable development, international law and trade. You can also read more of her commentaries and follow her on Twitter @LicyLaw.
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January 30, 2017