Funds for climate change unit not yet allocated
THE Met Office is still looking to secure funding for Jamaica’s first climate change unit, which should have been opened at the end of last year.
“Hopefully we should be getting it from this (2009/10) budget. We are hoping to have it as one of the priority projects coming out of this year’s budget,” said Jeffrey Spooner, head of the Climate Branch of the Met Office.
But he admitted that the global financial crisis could prove a challenge.
“With the crisis that is going on, there are a lot of cutbacks. However, I am still optimistic that we will be able to move ahead quite quickly because the unit is really very important to our getting all our climate change activities co-ordinated, and especially bearing in mind (the) Copenhagen (talks) coming up at the end of this year,” Spooner told Environment Watch.
The 15th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is scheduled for Copenhagen, Denmark December 7 to 18 (to which Spooner referred) and is intended to facilitate crucial talks on the financial and policy commitments of governments to addressing the changing climate.
Meanwhile, it is estimated that it will cost $8 million to set up Jamaica’s climate change unit, which is to be housed at the Met Office along Half-Way-Tree road.
The unit is, among other things, to:
. serve as a clearing house for all information on climate change;
. liaise with the Office of the Prime Minister and other stakeholders to have input in the formulation of a climate policy; and
. advance work on national reports on climate change for the island.
It is to be staffed by four people, including an information officer, two climate officers and the head of the unit.
Meanwhile, Spooner said that once the funds were in place, they would move full throttle to do the work.
“It is past the time (for the unit to be set up). Once we get the go-ahead and the funds are released, we are going to move speedily ahead,” he said. “We definitely have to co-ordinate as best we can because it is going to be very serious for climate change this year.”
