The 46th Regular Meeting of the Conference of CARICOM Heads of Government opened on Sunday with a commitment from Guyana to inject US$2M into the Caribbean Region’s Climate Adaptation Fund.
President Irfaan Ali announced that the US$2 million will come from the sale of the country’s carbon credit under the 2022 REDD+ Carbon Credits Purchase Agreement that Guyana has with the Hess Corporation, which will see the country receiving a minimum of US$750 million.
He said the US$2 million will support the region’s adaptation efforts.
“To support these efforts, adaptation efforts of the region, Guyana is committing US$2M out of our revenue earned from the sale of Carbon Credit as a part of our LCDS to the Regional Adaptation Fund,” President Ali announced.
The CARICOM Climate Adaptation Fund helps insulates CARICOM member countries from disaster risks and frees up fiscal space to support their essential needs.
The fund consists of two components – the first of which enhances post-disaster response through the coverage of premiums to the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility and the second component, assists in developing gender-sensitive innovative financing instruments to mobilize private capital for climate adaptation and disaster mitigation.
President Ali said ExxonMobil’s Global Trust Fund has also committed US$3 million to facilitate sustainable projects necessary to build resilience and improve productivity within the region, including food security.
“With this support, the Regional Adaptation Fund will have investment of US$5M to start with,” he said.
The President, who is also the current Chairman of CARICOM, said it is important for Guyana to firmly support the Bridgetown Initiative.
“We support as a region, firmly, the Bridgetown initiative,” Ali said.
Under the Bridgetown Initiative, the Caribbean Region is calling on UN member states to fast-track the transfer of $100 billion into the ‘Special Drawing Rights’, a monetary reserve currency, to finance programmes that support climate resilience and subsidize lending to low-income countries.
The CARICOM Chair said the Bridgetown Initiative must now form the basis of restructure existing financing within the region but also outside of the region.
He said on Sunday he had talks with Canada’s Minister of International Development, Ahmed Hussen on the importance of ramping up access to climate financing.
At the CARICOM-Canada Summit in Ottawa last year, the leaders acknowledged the particular vulnerabilities of CARICOM countries to external shocks, and had agreed to work together to advancing solutions to existing challenges, such as new criteria to access finance at the Caribbean Development Bank, the widespread adoption of climate resilience debt clauses, and jointly advocating for common interests through Canada and CARICOM members’ shared constituency at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
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