Americas > Caribbean > Jamaica > Jamaicas climate change fight gets big financial injection

Jamaica: Jamaicas climate change fight gets big financial injection

2016/03/20

Jamaica’s efforts to strengthen resilience against climate change are being assisted through implementation of the J$829.3 million (US$6.8 million) Improving Climate Data and Data Management Project (ICDIMP).

The project, which comprises phase two of the Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience (PPCR II), is being rolled out by the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), with grant support from the World Bank through the Climate Investment Fund (CIF).

It is one of five projects under Jamaica’s Strategic Programme for Climate Resilience (SPCR), and aims to improve the quality of data collected and used by public and private sector stakeholders at the local and national levels.

It involves climate resilient planning and hydromet data services development at a cost of approximately J$168.3 million (US$1.38 million); a climate change public education and awareness campaign, targeting behavioural change at a cost of J$88.4 million (US$725,000); and project management and evaluation to cost approximately J$82.9 million (US$680,000).

One of the primary beneficiaries is the Meteorological Service (Met Service), which is slated to receive a new Doppler weather radar at a cost of approximately J$487.8 million (US$4 million).

The new radar, which is expected to be acquired during the 2016/17 fiscal year, will replace the existing equipment at the Met Cooper’s Hill, St. Andrew division, which the agency has utilised for the completed 16 years.

The support as well includes renovation of the office, training of officers and inclunding programmes focusing on quality assurance.

The Met Service Division, the Water Resources Authority (WRA), and the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) will as well benefit from a number of other provisions. These include: 26 all-weather stations; 25 automatic recording rain gauges; 14 soil moisture probes; 11 groundwater loggers; eight agro-meteorological stations; and one sea level tide monitoring station.

Chief of the Met Service’s Weather Branch, Evan Thompson, welcomed the initiative, describing it as “an exciting moment for us” and, by extension, “all (of) our partner agencies.”

He noted that the Division is poised for increased capacity “to deliver on a lot of of our objectives in addressing resilience to climate change.”

“By the end of this project, in a matter of just five years, we would have seen improvements in our monitoring… (and) forecasting of hydro-meteorological and agro-meteorological events,” Thompson said

“We would be contributing additional entirely to hurricane predictions, flash flood forecasting, modelling of scenarios due to the impact of climate change, inclunding national development through better and additional efficient access to climatological data.”

World Bank Representative in Jamaica, Galina Sotirova, noted that climate change and its impact are “critical issues” which “disproportionately threaten” small island developing states (SIDS) like Jamaica.

These impacts, she said, “are projected to get progressively additional severe within a decade,” unless intervention measures are taken instantly.

Climate change due affects 60 % of Jamaica’s people, who reside in coastal communities, rendering them “most vulnerable”, Sotirova added.

Other partners and beneficiary stakeholders of the ICDIMP include: the Ministry of Health; Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM); Climate Studies Group at the University of the West Indies’ (UWI) Mona Campus in St. Andrew; inclunding the Climate Change, and National Spatial Planning Management Divisions.

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