MONTEGO BAY, St James — Minister of Water, Land, Environment, and Climate Change Robert Pickersgill says he intends to persuade Cabinet that the lion’s share of the budget should be reserved for his ministry in order to finance programmes geared at mitigating the negative effects of climate change on the environment and the economy.

“I have the responsibility to convince my Cabinet colleagues that in terms of the budget, more money… more allocations must come to my ministry — and I am not being selfish about it because climate change touches and concerns every other ministry,” Pickersgill argued. He added: “In terms of our GDP on an annual basis, it is a lot that we lose. Weatherrelated conditions on an annual basis in Jamaica, the costs are horrendous, so much so, that we move from one to the other without repairing what had happened before”.

He was speaking to reporters on Monday following the opening session of the four-day technical workshop held under the theme: ‘Mainstreaming Climate Change into National Development Planning and Budgeting’. The workshops, hosted by the European Union at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, are being attended by over 50 delegates from the Caribbean and other parts of the globe.

Last year speaking at a community forum in Portmore, St Catherine, head of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management Ronald Jackson disclosed that Government spends an average of $14 billion per year repairing damage caused by hurricanes and floods.

On Monday, underscoring the adverse effect climate change has on the tourism industry, the nation’s number one foreign exchange earner, Pickersgill echoed the ominous warning that if the rapid pace of coastal erosion is allowed to continue unchecked, it will result in a decline of tourist arrivals.

“The coastal degradation is going at a rate that it must be arrested. Because if it is not arrested it will affect our beaches and our tourist arrivals,” the minister cautioned.

Noting that he is of the view that the country is lagging behind “in terms of the public education about climate change”, the minister said, however, that we have been receiving some “comforting messages from the various multi-lateral agencies including the European Union”.

“I have never had more visits from ambassadors and high commissioners than I have had this time around and it is all about climate change,” he noted.

He said further that: “This whole business of climate change is of the utmost importance to us in Jamaica and the giant step was taken by the prime minister to make it a part of the designation of the ministry, hence water, land, environment and climate change”.