Caribbean policymakers get climate adaptation tool

Lisbeth Fog in SciDev.net: A decision-support website has been launched to help policymakers in the Caribbean build resilience to the risks that climate change poses to activities such as tourism and agriculture.

The Caribbean Climate Online Risk and Adaptation TooL (CCORAL), unveiled last month (12 July) in Saint Lucía, allows users to identify whether their activity is likely to be influenced by climate change and how to deal with this.

It helps project managers to understand climate influence on decisions, and to choose and apply risk management processes. The initial version has been developed for government users of any skill level for decisions about projects, legislation, budgets and national planning.

The tool was developed by the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, which coordinates the region's response to climate change, and Acclimatise, a company that specialises in adaptation and risk management. "It was piloted in Jamaica, Suriname, Belize and Barbados to inform its design and content," Keith Nichols, development specialist at the centre, tells SciDev.Net…

An aerial view of Paramaribo in Suriname, shot by Loek Tangel, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Netherlands