ST ANDREW, Jamaica— Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Senator Matthew Samuda, says Climate Change is a lived experience in Jamaica.

Speaking on Thursday at a Public Lecture on Loss and Damage at the University of the West Indies, Mona, in St Andrew, Minister Samuda said Climate Change impacts are affecting every part of our lives and every sector in our economy, especially since 70 per cent of our population lives within five kilometres of the sea in low lying areas.

“When you live that close to the sea in low lying areas, land loss is an issue. When so much of your economy depends on foreign exchange earned from tourism which sells ‘Sun, Sand and Sea’, losing your beaches is an issue. When you have salt water intrusion and deteriorating soil quality affecting the output of your farmers, it’s an issue, and that is our lived experience in Jamaica”, the minister said.

He noted that when climate change is discussed, people in the developed world often think of the effects as a Category 5 hurricane, or devastating fires similar to that occurring in British Columbia last year. He added, however, that it is the slow onset events that have debilitating effects on managing the economy and keeping the society together.

“We’re seeing the awful effects of our slow onset events.  It is the drought that we had last year which is hard to (capture on) film. It’s not something you can capture theatrically. But when you have the sort of droughts and long dry periods that we are now experiencing in Jamaica, you understand it in a real way. You see that impact when you have further learning loss because a school can’t be opened as it doesn’t have water”, Senator Samuda explained.

He highlighted the need to understand the science behind climate change, and to explain the science to citizens, as otherwise, it would be difficult to justify development plans that are more expensive and slower.

“Adaptation plans have to contemplate citizens at the centre of these plans and have to contemplate making investments that, to make them climate resilient, are way more expensive than some of the infrastructure that we have built in the past. These are tough discussions”, he noted.

Samuda said he therefore welcomed the role that the University of the West Indies, Jamaica’s Multilateral Partners and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO’s) are playing, in bringing the discussions to the table and ‘laying the wicket” for politicians to have the necessary economic talks on these issues.

The Loss and Damage Workshops and Public Lecture were held under the theme “The Urgent Need for Climate Change Attribution Science”.

Detection and Attribution Science, is aimed at identifying changes in climate which are outside of the natural range and determining the cause of these unnatural changes.   This, in turn, will serve to inform the true value of loss and damage due to climate change.