KINGSTON, Jamaica — Former Minister of Water, Land, Environment and Climate Change Robert Pickersgill today criticised Prime Minister Andrew Holness for not allowing the environment and climate change portfolio to remain a designated ministry, accusing him of hiding the portfolio.

The Jamaica Labour Party Administration, unlike the former People’s National Party-led Administration which had the portfolio under the Ministry of Land, Water, Environment and Climate Change, announced that the climate change and environment portfolio would be subsumed, along with several others, under the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM).

Pickersgill is of the view, however, that the portfolio is not being treated as a priority and should be operating in a stand-alone ministry.

“We (PNP) were one of about two or three countries in the world that named it in a portfolio, so everywhere I went and the ministry was named, people were absolutely in amazement because it was visionary,” Pickersgills told reporters before the opening of Parliament today. “I don’t know why they would want to hide it.”

According to the PNP chairman, the fact that the portfolio has been subsumed by the OPM is no consolation.

“It is still hidden, it should not be hidden, it should be on the forefront,” he added.

“The temperature has gone to two degrees and we are advocating for 1.5, now we are two degrees. We will see what will happen and you don’t have to be any prophet,” said Pickersgill, in reference to a commitment coming out of the recent climate change Summit in Paris for countries to limit average global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Tanesha Mundle