JAMAICA is planning to establish a climate change unit that will have responsibility for ensuring that the island derives maximum benefits from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Land and Environment said it intended to make full use of the CDM, to fund sustainable development projects like the capture of methane from landfills.

The CDM is one of the two project-based mechanisms of the 1997 protocol of the United Nations Framework for Climate Change. The other is the Joint Implementation Mechanism that enables developed countries to invest in other developed countries to earn carbon allowances to help meet their stipulated emission targets.

The mechanisms, together, are designed to help developing countries like Jamaica attain sustainable development while making it easier for developed countries, dubbed the Annex 1 countries, to meet reduction targets for their greenhouse gas emissions.

“The CDM offers tremendous opportunities for developing countries such as ours to develop projects for sustainable development that we can benefit from economically and the Annex 1 countries, which has commitments we can use to fulfil their emission reduction,” Donovan Stanberry, the ministry’s permanent secretary said yesterday.

He was speaking at a press conference on climate change at the ministry’s Half-Way-Tree offices in Kingston.

Stanberry noted that the recent sale of clean air credits through the sale of the Wigton Windfarm in Manchester, to the Netherlands, was indicative of the potential benefits to be gained through the CDM.

“The Wigton windfarm was just bought last week and we have a whole portfolio of projects that we have developed. They haven’t reached full project yet in terms of feasibility, and so on, but we have outlines,” Stanberry said. “And we have every intention to bring them to the stage where we can call the partners of the Annex 1 countries to look at them so we can get funding for implementation.”

It is against this background that the ministry is now also looking to establish the climate change unit. The unit, about which Jamaica has already approached the British Government for assistance, is to work with the local private sector to develop projects in line with CDM guidelines and to locate buyers for those projects.

In addition to the establishment of the unit, the ministry is also looking to appoint an ambassador for climate change. That individual would continue lobby efforts long after Jamaica is chair of the Group of 77 and China and thus head of delegation for conferences like the recent Montreal conference on climate change.

“The resources are there and the thing is to be able to have the capacity in-house to put the projects together in the format that is required and for people who have patience and the know-how to sift their way through the bureaucracy,” Stanberry said. “This thing (climate change) is not a joke business. This climate change thing is not an esoteric thing. It is something that affects people’s lives, people’s livelihood and it has the potential to wipe out all the gains that we have made in our economy.”

Meanwhile, Stanberry said that the participation of the private sector in any of the efforts to adapt to climate change was critical since they would be required to put up the capital. At the same time, he said it was important for the ministry, through the climate change unit, to work as facilitator.

“The real adaptation for climate change will only take place at the community level and the challenge is for the ministry to work with the various NGOs (non-government organisations) and community people to put together their various projects so that we can access these funds,” he said. “That is something we intend to pursue rigorously. Whatever funding is out there, whatever opportunities are there for technology transfer… we intend to fully avail ourselves of those resources.”

Among the funds available to benefit from is the Adaptation Fund, the management and operations of which are to be worked out over a one-year period. This is to be done in tandem with decisions made at the recently concluded Montreal conference.

– williamsp@jamaicaobserver.com