UWI probes Hurricane Dorian
MEMBERS OF the public will today get the chance to relook at Hurricane Dorian, which pummelled The Bahamas in September, leaving in its wake death, hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, and widespread concern as to whether this is the new normal for hurricane events in Caribbean islands.
This is thanks to the ongoing ‘Science for Today’ public lecture series of the Faculty of Science and Technology at The University of the West Indies, which looks at emergent and topical issues in the public’s interest through a science lens.
Today’s public lecture is being hosted by the Department of Geography and Geology inside Science Lecture Theatre 1, beginning at 5:30 p.m..
Presenters include Dr Tennecia Stephenson of the Climate Studies Research Group and head of the Department of Physics, and Dr Donovan Campbell, head of the Department of Geography and Geology. Together they will explore the topic ‘Abandon ship? A science take on disaster reduction and small island resilience in light of Dorian’.
Speaking to The Gleaner yesterday, Campbell said his presentation will focus on climate risk insurance, an option that is increasingly being championed as a critical part of the mix for climate-resilience building in the region, which has long been susceptible to hurricane events.
“Climate risk insurance is gaining good traction (as seen with) the launch of the COAST (Caribbean Oceans and Aquaculture Sustainability Facility), a World Bank-funded programme which is targeted at small-scale fishers and the fisheries sector in general,” Campbell noted. It was launched in Grenada and St Lucia.
“With financial support from the US Department of State, the World Bank, the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF SPC) and the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) have developed this first-ever parametric insurance for the fisheries sector, which is designed to enhance resilience against the impacts of climate-related disasters,” reveals the Wold Bank website.
“While it is the government that purchases the COAST insurance policy, the policy is unique, as the final beneficiaries are the fisherfolk and other persons in the sector, such as boat captains, fish vendors etc. The government disburses any payouts on the policy to these fisherfolk,” the World Bank explained.
Meanwhile, Campbell said this is an approach that is being looked at more and more, that is, “how to make the poorest of the poor benefit from the same level of social protection when it comes to climate hazards”.
“From my standpoint, it is really getting to the point where climate insurance is no longer an option, but an absolute imperative. It is now to find the correct modalities to get it entrenched in the system and become more of a feature of our social policies and socialprotection systems,” he explained.
At the same time, he encouraged the public to turn out to the lecture.
“The science lecture series is very important because there is a divide between what we are doing here in academia and the public. Sometimes people don’t really understand the significance of our work, and so the series is to bridge that divide. But also, it is an opportunity to learn from the public how to improve our work and to make it societally relevant,” the researcher said.
“We are under a lot of pressure in the Caribbean. The challenges are so serious that the type of research that we do has to result in societally relevant solutions. That can only be achieved by having dialogue and to see how what we are doing can be beneficial to policy and to local communities,” Campbell added.