Facing the storm: Caribbean countries make urgent call for more equitable climate funding

Photo and Excerpt from corporateknights.com

Jamaica was on hurricane watch in the days leading up to the UN COP28 climate summit. An unusual tropical storm swinging in from the west was heading for the Caribbean, a region often in the eye of the changing climate, with intensifying storms, record flooding, devastating drought and crumbling coastlines.

In the face of such turmoil, the Caribbean has home-grown solutions that are building resilience and lowering emissions as it girds for fiercer storms: coral reef baskets to protect coastlines, sugarcane waste to create biofuel, recycled plastic to strengthen building blocks, or carbon-absorbing concrete made with saltwater.

But what it’s missing are greater pools of more equitable funding that help scale these projects and a recognition that the destructive changes it is suffering through are largely not of its making.