A ROAD MAP TO Barbados’ green economy was launched on World Environment Day last Thursday, highlighting opportunities to transform this economy via agriculture, fisheries, tourism, housing/construction, and transport.
At the launch, which attracted local and foreign environmental experts, journalists and a Hollywood actor to the Parliament Buildings in Bridgetown, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) executive director Achim Steiner lauded Barbados as “a green economy pioneer” of which UNEP was proud to be an ally.
However, he noted that climate change would eventually affect areas like fisheries and tourism, the lifeblood of many small island developing states (SIDS) like Barbados, while the capital cost of sea-level rise in CARICOM countries was estimated at US$187 billion over the next 60 years.
Steiner also noted that energy prices in most SIDS were among the highest in the world – in some cases 500 per cent more than in the United States – “primarily as a result of their dependence on imported fuel”.
Commending Barbados on its solar water heating programme since the 1970s, its 1994 Plan of Action for SIDS, and its new growth and development strategy, which includes renewable energy use and other green economic policy proposals, UNEP launched the Barbados Green Economy Scoping Study compiled by the Government and University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill Campus, yesterday.
The study, a road map for policymakers and businesses for the greening of the five mentioned key sectors, was described by retired UWI lecturer Sir Frank Alleyne as “pointers to policies and programmes which can create an environment where we have a sustainable economy, an environmentally sound economy and a socially balanced economy”.
The 223-page study was put together in consultation with various stakeholders and a technical committee featuring members of Government, the private sector and academia.
The study concluded that, in light of the importance of the five sectors, the road map could lead to moderation by Barbadian consumers and great economic transformation that could benefit future generations.
Sir Frank, however, noted the need for an integrated transport system, the use of derelict sugar factories as waste-to-energy plants, and reduction of chemical fertilisers, cautioning that low-lying tourism areas of the south and west coasts were particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels which could destroy the island’s tourism industry.
Another important finding of the study was that it confirmed the need for more public and private sector investment along with changes in consumer behaviour.
Also launched was the SIDS Foresight Report outlining 20 key challenges and ways to tackle them in the 52 SIDS across the globe.
Hollywood actor Ian Somerhalder, known for his role in The Vampire Diaries and Lost, was designated in Barbados as UNEP’s new Goodwill Ambassador before an audience that included Minister of the Environment Dr Denis Lowe and Dean of UWI’s Faculty of Science and Technology, Dr Colin Depradine.
World Environment Day was established by the UN General Assembly in 1972 to mark the opening of the Stockholm conference on the human environment. (RJ)
