Climate Change Week: Enhancing Belize’s Position in Global Climate Action
The first-ever Climate Change Week is currently underway at the San Ignacio Hotel. It began on Tuesday and is being hosted by the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management through the National Climate Change Office in collaboration with the National Biodiversity Office. The theme is “Enhancing Belize’s Position in Global Climate Action.” News Five’s Duane Moody stopped in today and files this report.
Duane Moody, Reporting
Inclusivity was the overarching theme coming out of the first-ever Belize Climate Change Week, as the four-day event engaged public and private sector stakeholders and saw representation from youths and indigenous peoples.
Kenrick Williams
Dr. Kenrick Williams, C.E.O., Ministry of Sustainable Development, Climate Change & Disaster Risk Management
“What we wanted to do was to create a space where we do a couple things. We start to engage stakeholders, indigenous people, young people, technical officers within the government, C.E.O.s, high level officers and decision-makers, politicians to talk about climate change, the impacts of climate change, how we mainstream climate change. We also wanted to build the capacity of some of these key sectors. We talk about everybody is impacted by climate change, but when we go out and do negotiations and we put out Belize’s national position on climate change, does it really encompass everybody’s perspective? And so this week was really to create a space to do that.”
The Belize Climate Change Week is described as being crucial in the Government of Belize’s commitment to responding to climate change and engaging all relevant stakeholders in propelling climate action on a national and global level.
Dr. Kenrick Williams
“In COP27 coming up, in the UNCBD – the UN Convention on Biological Diversity – their COP coming up in December, we now will have a better position, a more informed position by our young people, by indigenous people, by technical officers. So it is a stronger position in terms of Belize’s position when we go out there. Outside of the formalities of the training and capacity, there will be a panel discussion, but also a session where people discuss how this thing impact them, how they would like to contribute, what are some of the works they are doing in their communities or their respective agencies. And again, all of those is intended to inform the national position going forward. As we write the national position at COP, as we write ministers’ intervention in the various side events and stuff like that, these positions are supposed to inform those things going into both COPs.”
Political leaders, policy makers, indigenous people, youth, women, and children must become aware of the impacts of climate change – as it is being experienced this present day – and commit to joining forces to tackle these impacts. Environment and Climate change Expert Una May Gordon from Jamaica has been leading the sessions and says that events like these help to advise leadership and the respective roles in battling this issue at all levels of society.
Una May Gordon
Una May Gordon, Environment & Climate Change Expert
“People like us who advise governments, who advise ministers, it is for us also to give them the information so they can connect and so this is part of connecting the dots. How do we assist the leadership? I don’t expect the minister to be talking climate language all the time, but I expect that when he takes this information, when we connect the dots for him, he can make a sound decision to cabinet that this is what is required for the Cayo District because of the impacts of climate change. That’s how we connect the dots and I think we are getting some traction there.”
The Belize Climate Change Week is financed by the U.N.D.P. Climate Promise Project: From Pledge to Impact. Duane Moody for News Five.
