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Climate Change Solutions Can’t Wait for US Leadership

Published April 5, 2017

By Desmond Brown

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Wednesday April 5, 2017, (IPS) – From tourism-dependent nations like Barbados to those rich with natural resources like Guyana, climate change poses one of the biggest challenges for the countries of the Caribbean.

Nearly all of these countries are vulnerable to natural events like hurricanes.

Not surprisingly, the climate change threat facing the countries of the Caribbean has not gone unnoticed by the region’s premier financial institution, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).

“We are giving high priority to redressing the fallout from climate change,” the bank’s president Dr. Warren Smith told journalists at a press conference here recently.

“This is an inescapable reality, and we have made it our business to put in place the financial resources necessary to redress the effects of sea-level rise and more dangerous hurricanes.”

CDB has also tapped new funding for renewable energy and for energy efficiency.

For the first time, the bank has accessed a US$33 million credit facility from Agence Française de Développement (AFD) to support sustainable infrastructure projects in select Caribbean countries and a 3 million euro grant to finance feasibility studies for projects eligible for financing under the credit facility.

“At least 50 percent of those funds will be used for climate adaptation and mitigation projects,” Smith explained.

“We persuaded the Government of Canada to provide financing for a CAD$5 million Canadian Support to the Energy Sector in the Caribbean Fund, which will be administered by the CDB. This money will help to build capacity in the energy sector over the period 2016 to 2019.”

In February, CBD also became an accredited partner institution of the Adaptation Fund, and in October 2016, the bank achieved the distinction of accreditation to the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

“Why is this such a big deal? The Caribbean is facing a climate crisis, which we need to tackle now – with urgency,” Smith said.

“The Adaptation Fund and the Green Climate Fund have opened new gateways to much-needed grant and or low-cost financing to address climate change vulnerabilities in all of our borrowing member countries (BMCs).”

The financing options outlined by the CDB president would no doubt be welcome news to Caribbean countries in the wake of United States President Donald Trump’s recently proposed budget cuts for climate change funding.

The proposed 2018 federal budget would end programmes to lower domestic greenhouse gas emissions, slash diplomatic efforts to slow climate change and cut scientific missions to study the climate.

The budget would cut the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) funding by 31 percent including ending Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan – the Obama administration’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

At the U.S. State Department, the budget proposal eliminates the Global Climate Change Initiative and fulfills the president’s pledge to cease payments to the United Nations’ climate change programmes by eliminating U.S. funding related to the Green Climate Fund and its two precursor Climate Investment Funds.

The Green Climate Fund is the U.N. effort to help countries adapt to climate change or develop low-emission energy technologies, and the Global Climate Change Initiative is a kind of umbrella programme that paid for dozens of assistance programmess to other countries working on things such as clean energy.

The proposal would also cut big chunks out of climate-related programmes of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The USAID is the American agency through which the countries of the Caribbean get a lot of their funding for climate change adaptation and mitigation.

“We would be foolish to have taken a lead role in getting the world to move on climate, to put innovation at its core and then walk away from that agenda,” Dr Ernest Moniz said on CNN. “Some of the statements being made about the science, I might say by non-scientists, are really disturbing because the evidence is clearly there for taking prudent steps.

“I would not argue with the issue that different people in office may decide to take different pathways, different rates of change etc., but not the fundamental science,” added Moniz, who was instrumental in negotiating the Paris Climate Agreement.

Throughout his election campaign, Trump consistently threatened to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate deal.

Moniz, a nuclear physicist and former Secretary of Energy serving under President Obama, from May 2013 to January 2017, said he would wait and see how this develops, but said of the threat to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement, “obviously, that would be a very bad idea” noting that every country in the world is now committed to a low-carbon future.

“There’s no going back. One of my friends in the industry would say ‘you can’t keep the waves off the beach’. We are going to a low carbon future.”

Since being sworn in as president in January, Trump’s administration has been sending somewhat mixed signals about climate change. While Trump himself has described climate change as a hoax, he also said he had an open mind toward efforts to control it.

Caribbean countries, meanwhile, are watching with keen interest the developments in the United States.

Executive Director of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) Milton Haughton said fisheries is one of the industries being impacted by climate change.

“Climate change, sea level rise, ocean acidification and disaster risk management are major challenges facing the fisheries sector and the wider economies of our countries,” Haughton said ahead of a two-day meeting in Kingston to discuss measures for adaptation to climate change and disaster risk management in fisheries as well as the status of and recent trends in fisheries and aquaculture in the region.

“These issues continue to be high priorities for policy-makers and stakeholders because we need to improve capacity, information base and policy, and institutional arrangements to respond to these threats and protect our future.

“At this meeting, we will be discussing the USA-sponsored initiative to provide risk insurance for fishers, among other initiatives to improve and protect the fisheries sector and ensure food security,” Haughton added.

Education, Health, News

Smoking Ganja Increases Risk Of Stroke And Heart Attack, New Study Warns

Published April 5, 2017

WASHINGTON DC, USA, Wednesday April 5, 2017 – New research has revealed that cannabis is harmful to cardiovascular health and increases the chance of early death irrespective of related factors such as smoking tobacco.

Data taken from the records of more than 20 million people at over 1,000 US hospitals found that those who used the herb had a 26 percent greater chance of suffering a stroke than those who did not, as well as a 10 percent higher chance of having a heart attack.

The findings indicate that there is something intrinsic about cannabis that can damage the proper functioning of the human heart.

This conclusion remained unchanged after taking into account unhealthy factors known to affect many cannabis smokers, such as poor diet, obesity, alcohol overindulgence and tobacco smoking.

According to Dr Aditi Kalla, Cardiology Fellow at the Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia and the study’s lead author: “Even when we corrected for known risk factors, we still found a higher rate of both stroke and heart failure in these patients, so that leads us to believe that there is something else going on besides just obesity or diet-related cardiovascular side effects.

“It’s important for physicians to know these effects so we can better educate patients.”

The researchers analysed the records of young and middle-aged patients aged between 18 and 55 who were discharged from 1,000 hospitals in 2009 and 2010 at a time when marijuana use was still illegal in most states.

The study identified 316,000 patients, or 1.5 percent, where marijuana use was diagnosed in the notes.

Their cardiovascular disease rates were compared to those who did not use cannabis, and the difference was revealed.

The research, which was published last week at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Washington DC, built on previous research in cell cultures that has shown that heart muscle cells have cannabis receptors relevant to contractility, or squeezing ability, suggesting that those receptors might be one mechanism through which marijuana use could affect the cardiovascular system.

Business, International news, News, Travel

LIAT Workers Getting Paid But No Promise Salaries Won’t Be Late Again

Published April 5, 2017

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Wednesday April 5, 2017 – Industrial action by employees of regional airlines LIAT seems to have been averted – for now.

Chairman of the shareholder governments, Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines, yesterday evening announced that the latest sore point – the issue of late pay – has been resolved, if only for the time being.

The shareholder governments summoned an urgent meeting yesterday after tensions flared over the weekend after salaries were late. But Gonsalves emerged from the meeting with staff, management, the unions and shareholders at the Hilton Barbados Resort to announce that given the tone of the of the meeting, he would “be very surprised if any form of industrial action was pursued by various unions representing the staff.

“I think that instructions have gone to the bank for the payments, so depends on which bank you are in, some persons would get paid tomorrow [Wednesday] or the next day,” he told the media.

However, trouble could still be lurking, with the Vincentian leader suggesting that there was no guarantee that the airline would not be late with salaries again soon.

“The management is not saying that they would be in a position on each occasion over the next three months to pay precisely on time; there may be a couple of days deferral,” Gonsalves said.

Gonsalves said the issue of salaries was an important one, but there were “several practical questions” that needed to be addressed, “which are of concern to the staff and the travelling public by extension, that we hope immediately to be addressed over the medium term”.

The prime minister also revealed that plans had been drafted for the establishment of a technical committee to formulate a medium term development plan for the struggling airline.

‘What we decided on the way forward is that I would liaise with the president of the Caribbean Development Bank [CDB], who would name someone to draw up terms of reference for a technical committee to study a series of issue affecting operations of LIAT. This would be fed into a task force appointed by the shareholders and that task force would hold consultations with all of the relevant stakeholders . . . . Hopefully we can put together these committees in the week after Easter Monday and there is an outside time of three months for all of this technical and consultative work to be done and the report to be presented to the shareholders,” the Vincentian leader said.

In the meantime, Gonsalves assured that the LIAT management would not be resting on their laurels while the consultative work was being completed, as they have a number of issues pertaining to flight operations and the company’s day-to-day operations to address.

In a press release issued on Sunday LIALPA, possible the most militant of the unions, had called on the shareholder governments to dismiss the airline’s management.

Gonsalves did not address this matter in any detail, limiting his comments to an acknowledgement that those concerns were raised “in robust language”.

“The employees raised a number of issues relating to decisions, which, if the employees are correct about those matters, they would require immediate corrective action,” he said.

News, Regional News, Travel

LIAT in fresh dispute with workers

Published: 4 April 2017

A meeting will be held here Tuesday to discuss how to get out of the latest problem facing the struggling regional carrier, LIAT, which is embroiled in a salary dispute with staff.

The airline’s Acting Chief Executive Officer Julie Reifer-Jones said the shareholder governments had agreed to intervene in the carrier’s latest disagreement with workers and will meet Tuesday to determine how to avert industrial action.

The unions representing the workers have rejected the company’s plan to pay salaries late because of its financial woes. The unions have also threatened to take action if the airline proceeded with the deferrals.

In a press release issued on Sunday, the pilots’ union, the Leeward Islands Airline Pilots Association (LIALPA) went a step further, saying it “will not stand by and watch the airline’s financial health continue to deteriorate at massive levels, to the point where LIAT can’t even pay salaries on time”.

It also called on the shareholder governments to sack the management.

“LIAT management refuses to accept responsibility for the sad state of the airline’s affairs, and instead is focusing on making the crew the scapegoats. The travelling public deserves to know the truth: The current management at LIAT is not capable of running the airline at this critical time. Their track record speaks for itself,” LIALPA said in the release.

The union also strongly denied claims that delays in service experience over the weekend were due to industrial action by the pilots.

“This has nothing to do with LIALPA and we are not involved at all. As a matter of fact, we continue to pledge to the Caribbean people that we are currently going above and beyond the call of duty to get the airline running at optimal levels, even to the extent of not having meal breaks and working 11 hour shifts. We have already worked almost an extra week without pay. However, this is not sustainable,” the release stated.

Education, News, Regional News

Sex talks Comprehensive sexuality education comes under scrutiny

Published: 4 April 2017

The Ministry of Education is being asked to set clear guidelines for the teaching of sex education in the island’s schools.

During a fiery hour-long television debate Sunday night on the contentious issue of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), Chairman of the children’s charity ProtEqt Children’s Foundation Dr Veronica Evelyn stopped just short of describing the teaching of the subject as a free-for-all.

Evelyn, whose charity and advocacy group works in schools across the island, charged that there was no policy on what should be taught, or no consistent content, and the teachers lacked the proper training needed to deliver the health and family life education (HFLE) programme.

“The question is who is teaching . . . because in the schools you have health and family life educators who have been trained, but what goes on on the ground is . . . many times in order to just fill space in a timetable, if a teacher doesn’t have enough periods for the week, they are put to teacher HFLE,” the sociologist said on the CBC television show, The People’s Business.

“In our schools – and I am saying this without any fear of contradiction, I have worked with the schools – you have persons who have not been trained who are delivering this content . . . and not only so [but] because of a lack of accountability, sometimes it is abused,” she added.

CSE is one of the United Nations’ key strategies for combating the spread of HIV and AIDS among children and young people, and is described by the UN agency UNESCO as “an age-appropriate, culturally relevant approach to teaching about sex and relationships by providing scientifically accurate, realistic, non-judgemental information”.

UNESCO says that by adopting a comprehensive strategy, CSE emphasizes “an approach to sexuality education that encompasses the full range of information, skills and values to enable young people to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights and to make decisions about their health and sexuality”.

However, it has sparked controversy here, with Government legislator and church leader David Durant recently charging that CSE was “one of the greatest assaults on the health and innocence of children” and has an almost excessive focus on teaching children how to obtain sexual pleasure or gratification in various ways, including masturbation, anal and oral sex.

“I am appealing to the Ministry of Education and the PTA not to allow comprehensive sexuality education to enter our school system. It should not be embraced here because comprehensive sexuality education is one of the greatest assaults on the health and innocence of children. This is because unlike traditional sexual education, comprehensive sexuality education uses explicit material to promote promiscuity and high risk sexual behaviour to children as healthy and normal,” he said in his contribution to the debate on the 2017/2018 Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure.

“I do not think it is anything we should impose on our six, seven, eight, nine and ten-year-old children and even children a little older. The main goal of comprehensive sexuality education is to change the sexual norms of society. I am appealing that we do not allow it to have a firm root in our society,” he stressed.

This led to a stinging response from George Griffith, a social worker and former executive director of the Barbados Family Planning Association, who wrote in a column in Barbados TODAY that Durant’s opposition to the subject was “rooted in a set of deep-seated myths and downright misinformation based on denial and failure to accept that in this day and age, our children cannot be insulated from the realities of today’s 21st century world”.

“I make bold to say that persons who seek to deny our children access to CSE on the basis of their denial, fear, homophobic disposition or warped religions beliefs are doing them a great disservice,” Griffith wrote.

The former BFPA chief was among the five-member panel appearing on Sunday night’s television show. However, it was left to the association’s Youth Development Officer Keriann Hurley to repel many of the charges – both direct and inferred – including concerns by Ambrose Carter, the Pure Sex Centre founder, whose organization promotes abstinence before marriage.

Carter said research by his organization had revealed that 87 per cent of 11-plus students preferred to wait until marriage to have sex, and questioned whether CSE covered this “full circle of truth”.

“So, they want to wait for marriage, who is teaching them that? You asked about the real life practices? I am asking about the way of teaching. You hearing about all the sub-cultures and these things and the things that are bad that are happening. So who is bringing the positive? If the Barbados Family Planning Association is charged with the responsibility of teaching health and sexuality education to our children . . . is the Barbados Family Planning Association also encouraging children, or telling them that sex in marriage is also an option?” he asked.

However, Hurley told the panel, which also included President of the Youth Advocacy and Outreach Movement of the BFPA Kamal Clarke, that the children got the full truth about sex.

“We do give the full circle of truth and we do definitely make sure that all of the information allows every person whether you are religious or not to be able to make an informed decision and be able to stick to your personal value system,” she said.

Despite the strong differences, all the panellists agreed there was need for sex education in schools, but it ought to be delivered in an age-appropriate manner.