The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Tribune Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Philip “Brave” Davis says he hopes The Bahamas can benefit from the establishment of a loss and damage fund to aid vulnerable nations most at risk of the impacts of climate change.

The fund was announced on Sunday as one of the greatest accomplishments to come from this year’s COP27, held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt from November 6 to 18.

The Bahamas sent a delegation of about 70 people to attend this year’s United Nations COP27.

“(It’s) great news to me because as you know that was one of the reasons why I went to ensure that we first of all got loss and damage on the agenda,” Mr Davis said yesterday. “We were able to succeed in getting that on the agenda.

“They did it and excluded liability. Fortunately, we were able to add liability to the discussion and look where we are now.”

Asked whether The Bahamas would benefit from the fund, Mr Davis said: “I hope to. We hope to.”

While the fund is considered a marked success, a local environmental activist was yesterday of the view that The Bahamas has not done enough to shore up its future in the face of imminent impacts from global warming.

Sam Duncombe was also adamant that representatives needed to avoid describing The Bahamas as a country with low carbon emissions.

“We keep talking about the fact that we are not a large carbon emitter,” Ms Dumcombe said in an interview yesterday.

“Russia has a population of 145 plus million people. Their CO2 emissions per capita are 11.44 tons. The Bahamas, according to this same (web) site, has 378,000 people and we’ve produced 11.65 tons per capita. So, we are a huge emitter. Our population may be small which makes emissions smaller in the overall scheme of things, but we’re a huge polluter.

“For us to continue to allow the kinds of development, allow the most polluting tourism products on planet earth, we have embraced them wholeheartedly. They pollute, you know, millions of tons of CO2 and other emissions every year and for us to keep going around saying that we’re not a big emitter is not true.

“We’re a huge emitter and we need to do a better job at home in terms of the kinds of developments we allow. We should be going after developers that are more conscious about developing sensitively, maybe developing properties that are defunct instead of going after virgin territory and demolishing that ecosystem. We should be funnelling them to defunct properties and letting them fix them up as opposed to going to new places.

“The wetland destruction, the coral destruction, the constant dredging, the canals, the golf courses, we are our own biggest enemy and so in my mind it’s a totally inaccurate statement to say that we’re not a big polluter because we are a huge polluter.”

She also said: “So this while going around crying about how we need help for climate change, what is the government doing in terms of mitigating any kind of climate impact?”

Ms Duncombe said solar penetration in the country was “next to nothing”, adding: “When you think about that you have to think about who’s bringing in the oil and it’s cloudy on both sides of the political fence, because no one has the will to do anything.”

She was also critical of the large Bahamas delegation that attended COP27.

“As far as all them people flying all over the place I thought COVID taught us that we could do meetings by Zoom.

“The United Nations needs to be slapped and sterilised, for God’s sake. They’re the ones who are telling people reduce your consumption of fossil fuels, reduce your consumption of meat and yet you’re having an in person meeting halfway around the world, you know the amount of carbon that is emitted by all of those people flying over there, to me it’s just ludicrous,” Ms Duncombe said.