Leaders from small island developing States worldwide will converge on the shores of Antigua and Barbuda in the Caribbean this weekend to deliver a bold new plan of action to build resilience on the road to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Dominica is described as highly disaster-vulnerable: the country is regularly hit by hurricanes and, when the last one swept through in 2017, it caused huge devastation across the island.
The government, led by President Sylvanie Burton, the first woman and the first member of the indigenous Kalinago community to be the country’s Head of State, wants to make Dominica the world’s first ‘climate resilient country’. But, as the climate crisis threatens to lead to increasingly intense and frequent hurricanes, is this feasible?
The vast majority of small island developing States (SIDS) are heavily dependent on polluting, and expensive, fossil fuels for their energy needs: some spend around a quarter of their national budgets on imported fuel.
The Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda is leading the charge for more climate action paving the way for “resilient prosperity” as host of this month’s upcoming International Conference on Small Island Developing States, SIDS4.
In an exclusive interview with UN News’s Shanaé Harte, Gaston Browne said the very survival of small island nations is increasingly at stake due to rising waters, extreme weather, crushing debt and lack of basic resources.
Like many island economies, Dominica experiences high youth unemployment, and recent events, in particular Hurricane Maria and the COVID-19 pandemic, have combined to make the search for work even harder.
A UN-backed initiative designed to improve the employment options for young Dominicans, Work Online Dominica, has been successful in helping them to overcome the barriers they face on a small, remote island.
Trinidad and Tobago is described as one of the “frontline States”, those nations that are most severely affected by the impact of the climate emergency, and youth activists are among the most prominent voices in the country calling for stronger action to combat the crisis, both at home and abroad.
Caribbean island nations are vulnerable to a host of extreme weather events, from hurricanes to floods and droughts, that are becoming more dangerous and intense as a result of the climate emergency.
UN News met with three of the most prominent young climate activists on Trinidad & Tobago, and learned of their frustration with current environmental legislation, and what they are doing to raise awareness of the crisis.
A small but growing number of countries are well on their way to producing all of their electricity from renewable sources. Dominica, in the eastern Caribbean, is planning to join these pioneers and become the first small island developing State (SIDS) to stop using fossil fuels for energy generation.
Dominica may have found a solution to cover all of its electricity needs, and even sell electricity abroad, without burning fossil fuels: geothermal energy. This power source is 100 per cent clean, cheap and practically limitless.
Conor Lennon from UN News meets Vince Henderson, Dominica’s Minister for Economic Development and Sustainable Energy, and Fred John, CEO of the Dominica Geothermal Development Company to find out if the country really is on its way to a clean energy future.
Small Island Developing States are particularly vulnerable to plastic pollution. As well as coping with a tsunami of waste washes up on their beaches every day, these countries – which are generally highly dependent on imports – generate a large amount of plastic waste of their own, and often struggle to manage it.
