Tourism, agriculture need bad-weather coverage

Daily Gleaner (Jamaica): Advocates of climate-proof development worry about the possible economic fallout if Government and stakeholders do not move urgently to negotiate affordable insurance to protect the critical sectors of agriculture and tourism from the ill effects of adverse weather. This is critical, they argue, because the probability of a hurricane strike on the island has risen in recent times from one in 16 years to one in three years, due to global climate change.

Climate-proofing involves the adaptation of the natural and built environment to withstand or minimise the adverse effects of climate change. Local environmentalists and development experts lament that successive governments have not enforced legislation and policies to guide development, including a master plan that was developed for the tourism sector in 2000….

"It is very clear that we need to have a conversation with the insurance industry in this island, how they are going to help us, because they are a very important players in the discussion on climate change," he tells The Sunday Gleaner.

Director General of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, Ronald Jackson, supports McDonald, adding that the country's main foreign-exchange earner, tourism, needs protection. ...

Clarence White's 1903 photo of drops of rain, Wikimedia Commons