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(CNS): With global carbon emissions still climbing on Earth Day 2023, few governments around the world are taking the climate crisis as seriously as they need to, while here in the Cayman Islands, another Earth Day passed with no climate change policy in place.
The PACT Government has still failed to make any changes to the development plan, implement a ban on single-use plastics or introduce any meaningful policies to reduce and reuse, and has taken no tangible action to rapidly increase solar energy production.
Despite Premier Wayne Panton’s personal desire for the Cayman Islands to adapt to a warming world and protect itself from looming problems, his Cabinet colleagues are evidently far less inclined to make the necessary changes. As a result, the PACT government is dragging its feet on implementing a core sustainability policy.
In his Earth Day message at the weekend, the premier listed some of the things that have been achieved but admitted there is still a great deal of work to be done.
“Unsustainable development and climate change are risks, not just to our physical environment, but to our unique Caymanian culture and to the lives and livelihoods of current and future generations,” Panton said.
“Achieving a balance between our environment, economy and society is essential to ensuring we can maximise the benefits of sustainable development to benefit our people both now and in the future. That is what sustainability means to me. It’s more than an abstract concept – it’s a contract between our generation and the children of tomorrow.”
He maintained that the PACT Government is committed to taking a sustainable approach to the social, environmental and economic development of the Cayman Islands, ensuring a peaceful, prosperous future for the generations of Caymanians to come.
But two years into this administration, PACT has not made any meaningful change to prepare Cayman for sea level rise, more flooding from storm surges or greater risks of drought as rainfall patterns change. Nor has the government addressed critical issues such as the ongoing decline in bio-diversity and further loss of mangrove wetlands.
The premier pointed out that since coming into office, PACT has facilitated the purchase and protection of natural habitat, including parcels in the Salinas Reserve, Sand Cay, Western Mangroves Area and Central Mangrove Wetlands in Grand Cayman, Tarpon Lake and the East Interior of Little Cayman, and Hemmington Forest in Cayman Brac, almost doubling the amount of land under some form of conservation.
However, that still only equates to around 11% of Cayman’s land mass and is well short of the UN minimum goal of protecting 30% of the Earth’s natural habitat. For every acre the government buys to protect, many more are lost to development.
Likewise, over 600 trees have been planted over the last ten months as part of the National Tree Planting Programme, but during the same period bulldozers have destroyed many times that number of older and ecologically important trees.
While import duty on some energy-efficient devices and building materials has been waived, plans to move the development of solar production forward to meet the national energy appear to have stalled. Just over 3% of local energy comes from renewable sources, despite a goal to reach 70% in less than 14 years.
The Cayman Islands Government has received grants from the EU’s Resilience, Sustainable Energy and Marine Biodiversity Programme (RESEMBID) to improve energy efficiency in public sector buildings and government-built affordable homes, to train unemployed and underemployed Caymanians in sustainable career paths and install a solar array at the University College of the Cayman Islands.
But these efforts, while helpful, fall far short of the investment needed to prepare the country for the future.
The Climate Change Risk Assessment, which was designed to inform the national Climate Change Policy, has outlined future threats the Cayman Islands must deal with. However, the policy has still not been implemented. The government has also failed to make any planning law changes that could curb unsustainable and over-development, which continues at pace.
This year’s Earth Day theme was a repeat of last year’s theme, “Invest In Our Planet”, to mobilize policymakers, investors and society at large to fight the climate crisis. Despite the progress that has been made in some areas, the problem is so vast that the planet is still way off track in meeting vital targets.
While the Cayman Islands cannot make a significant change in the global fight to reduce emissions or the many other problems fuelling the climate crisis, residents here are on the front line of its impact. Cayman therefore desperately needs to invest in protection and mitigation.
But so far, there is no sign of critical mitigating action, such as changing oceanfront setbacks to stop development on the beach, introducing a moratorium on the removal of mangroves, re-wilding lost habitat, and addressing our dependence on fossil fuels and imported food.
See Panton’s message below on CIGTV:
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