Dr. Kenrick Leslie to be Honored in a Virtual Farewell Ceremony
Kenrick Leslie
Back in January of this year, we reported on the retirement of Doctor Kenrick Leslie from the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center. Doctor Leslie has been serving as the executive director at the regional entity since 2004 until he retired at the start of this year. This Wednesday, Leslie will be honored with a virtual farewell ceremony that will see the participation of regional dignitaries, as well as CARICOM executives. During Leslie’s tenure, he achieved a number of milestones that have helped to champion the region’s response to climate change. Today, Doctor Colin Young, the new executive director of the Five-Cs, and Leslie’s successor, spoke with the media about some of Leslie’s accomplishments through center.
Colin Young
Dr. Colin Young, Executive Director, CCCCC
“The center was established at a time where financing was always a challenge and so the center since 2003 has been a self financed institution. And so even though it is a CARICOM institution all of the funding to run the operations of the center is obtained by the center on its own. And that of itself is a remarkable achievement; that fifteen years since establishment the center is able to raise all of the funds to conduct its operation and provide financing for climate change work in the region. The number speaks for themselves that since 2005 up until January 2020 the center has leveraged and mobilize up to 250 million dollars for implementation of a wide range of projects in all of the CARICOM countries in the region for climate change adaption; climate change mitigation and particularly in terms of the research and gathering the data on climate change. So, because of Dr. Leslie’s efforts and his ability to forge partnerships with other regional institutions such as the Caribbean Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology and the University of the West Indies and the Modeling Group and putting up automatic weather stations all over the Caribbean along with coral reef monitoring station all of this data is now being used to help guide countries in terms of their decision making in terms of climate change adaption. The center also, under his leadership, became accredited to the Green Climate Fund which is the world’s largest fund that is set up to fund climate change mitigation and adaption efforts. The center is now accredited and it is one of two in the region.”
Another notable achievement under Leslie’s tenure is the Light Detection and Ranging System, also known as LiDar. It’s a piece of technology that the center has made forty-percent more affordable for member states to access and boost their capability to monitor and plan for physical changes to the land and marine environments.
