Stimson Center Launches CORVI Climate Assessment in Belize City

A climate and ocean risk vulnerability initiative assessment is being conducted in Belize City and surrounding communities.  It began earlier this week with a series of seminars and meetings with key stakeholders from local businesses, government, academia and civil society.  This morning, we stopped by the Biltmore Hotel where the sessions were being held.  Carolyn Gruber is the Deputy Director of the Environmental Security Program at the Stimson Center in Washington.

Carolyn Gruber

Carolyn Gruber, Deputy Dir., Stimson Center

“This workshop is part of our climate and ocean risk vulnerability initiative.  This is the sixteenth vulnerability initiative we‘ve done across the globe, but it is our first in Central America and so Belize, as we know and learned this week, has already proven itself to be a really excellent steward of the environment and is very concerned about climate risk and vulnerability and so they’ve been really excellent partners with the Ministry of Economic Development and we’re working closely with the Taiwan ICDF team, as well as the Taiwan Ocean Affairs Council to study climate risk holistically and in a very place-based way.  So this is really focused on Belize City’s climate risk and so we’re working across three different categories of risk, ecological, financial, social and then political risk.  And so, it creates this 3D picture of what risk really looks like and part of our work, maybe the most important part of our work, is translating that research that we do into action, and so the outcomes of this assessment will include some very specific recommendations, whether it be policy ideas or programming ideas to really reduce Belize City‘s risk in a very specific way.”

Isani Cayetano

“Speak to us about the social aspect of it.”

Carolyn Gruber

“As we’ve learned, we’ve had some time to spend in the city of Belize this week and we’ve learned that there are a lot of social needs here with respect to climate risk and vulnerability.  Forty-five percent of the population lives in very low-lying areas and so that creates a lot of risks with respect to storm surge, hurricanes, flooding, and all of this means that making decisions and having decision makers be informed about that risk and about the opportunities for improvement is really essential.”