Adapting to Climate Change in the Caribbean: Existential Threat or Development Crossroads?

Abstract

The past two decades have seen a significant shift in the Caribbean's development landscape, with climate change becoming the focal point of regional policy and planning. These initiatives represent a major shift in the region's development policy arena—a shift that is premised on the transformational, if not apocalyptic, implications that anthropogenic climate change seem to pose for the Caribbean. The discourses that have shaped this policy shift and their wider implications for the region's future development trajectory are the central focus of this paper. First, we provide an overview of the current climate change science literature for the Caribbean and discuss some of the main implications for regional development. We then trace and assess the region's major policy responses to climate change, paying keen attention to the Caribbean Community's strategic approach for promoting climate-compatible development over the past two decades. We conclude by critically exploring the notion that global climate change poses an 'existential threat' to the Caribbean, amidst its potential to erode or even reverse whatever developmental gains the region has achieved since the post-independence era and the region's own state of readiness to respond effectively to such an unprecedented challenge.