JAMAICA’S Land and Environment Ministry is moving to implement a raft of measures geared at achieving the island’s adaptation to climate change, which has been credited for the recent active hurricane season experienced locally.

“Those of us who live in Jamaica and face the wrath of increasingly intense weather events do not have the luxury of debating whether climate change is real.

We only need to drive on the airport road, or look at the disappearance of the Negril beach or visit Portland Cottage. Adaptation for us is a must,” Land and Environment Minister Dean Peart noted on Tuesday.

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

Among the measures being adopted is the partnership with Cuban experts to conduct studies on the Palisadoes road in the capital. These studies are expected to inform the redevelopment design to facilitate sea defence and other elements crucial for adaptation to climate change. The Palisadoes road was left inundated with sand and other debris from the sea following the passage of Hurricane Ivan in September 2004, even as it was rendered impassable to the motoring public.

The hope is that once the design of the road is completed, Jamaica will be able to apply to the Adaptation Fund, as provided for under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, for money to finance the redevelopment. The recent climate change conference in Montreal, in which Jamaica participated, agreed to hammer out the details of the operation and management of the Fund over a one-year period.

The government is also hoping to complete the upgrade of the island’s building code ahead of the next hurricane season. Hopeton Heron, head of the Jamaica Institute of Engineers involved in that effort, said the process will be completed by the first quarter of next year.

That code will inform people as to where and how best to construct their homes and other structures.

It will thereafter be up to regulatory agencies such as the National Environment and Planning Agency, which Heron heads, and the parish councils to ensure that people adhere to its stipulations.

The ministry, in tandem with other public sector partners, is also looking to strengthen community centres and identify locations where people can be housed in the event of hazards such as hurricanes.

The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has, meanwhile, predicted an average global rise in the temperature of 1.4 degrees Celsius to 5.8 degrees Celsius between 1990 and 2100, indicating that climate change is in fact taking place.

Among the long-term implications of climate change are the melting of glaciers and the polar ice-caps and the attendant rise in sea levels, that could wipe out some countries. In addition, there is the expected loss of coral reefs due to the death of the temperature-sensitive organisms that build the reef. This could impact Jamaica’s tourism sector, which is vulnerable to climate change.

It is against this background that Peart vowed Tuesday to keep the issue of climate change alive, while suggesting that efforts to enhance Jamaica’s ability to cope with the effects would be continued.

“This (adaptation to climate change) has to become everybody’s business, from the way we build our houses, to where we build them to how we construct our infrastructure.

We must also arrest the problem of deforestation with renewed zest (and) redouble our efforts at exploiting renewable sources of energy,” he said. “The ministry is committed to providing the leadership to mainstream adaptation in our daily life, and in our development and economic planning,” Peart said.

– williamsp@jamaicaobserver.com