CARICOM Secretary-General calls climate change "an attack on our development"

ISRIA: Secretary-General, His Excellency Edwin Carrington has pointed to the need for enhanced relations between CARICOM and the United Kingdom (UK) to confront the challenges posed to the Region's development by climate change.

At the ceremony for the presentation of Credentials by His Excellency Fraser Wheeler, Plenipotentiary Representative of the UK to CARICOM, on Friday January 23, 2009 at the headquarters of the CARICOM Secretariat, Georgetown, Guyana, Secretary-General Carrington stated that climate change "was not a future fear, but a current yearly incremental crisis- an attack on our development - one we cannot confront alone."

In highlighting the link between climate change and the economic development of the Region, Secretary-General Carrington cited the decisions of nations like the UK, in regard to the phenomenon, and the Caribbean's mainstay industry, tourism.

Particularly, he stated, the decision made by European countries to impose incremental taxes on airline tickets for long destinations, including the Caribbean, to offset the cost of adapting to climate change caused by carbon emission by those countries, meant that "the Caribbean like Peter is not just paying for Paul but for all."….

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