Youth Climate Change Forum Held in Dangriga

The National Youth Climate Forum was held on Monday, ahead of COP28 in Dubai at the end of the month.  Young men and women from across the country converged on Dangriga where they met with government officials from the Ministry of Sustainability and Climate Change.  Chief Executive Officer, Doctor Kenrick Williams brought home the real effects of climate change on Belize.

Kenrick Williams

Dr. Kenrick Williams, C.E.O., Ministry of Sustainable Development

“When you look at the case of Belize City and thinking about the Raccoon Street Extension and the Belama Phase One, Two, Three extensions and when there is a flood, how they have to cope with it.  When you think about Sunday Wood Village and Otoxha and Santa Teresa and the fact that we don’t know when is the start of rainy season and when is the end of the dry season and so we don’t know when to plant our corn, and so that impacts our food over the cycle of that year.  When we look at the San Ignacio downtown area and the market and how what use to be for us a forty-year flood is now seemingly an every year thing and there are costs and impacts and impacts on people’s lives.  When we look at the increasing drought in the north and how it affects our sugarcane, it is real for the farmers.  That’s real climate change.  And then the mere talk about Dangriga and the case of erosion and we spoke about Monkey River earlier today at breakfast and how this is real, not just because it’s a theory about climate change but there is real impact to people and people’s lives.  When the people of Monkey River go to their burial site and there’s a loss of a place where you can live with, speak with, share with your lost loved ones, that’s real climate change, it’s not just theory.”