Regional climate meeting in Saint Lucia

Saint Lucia’s Ministry of Sustainable Development, Energy, Science and Technology in collaboration with the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center hosted a regional meeting for climate change negotiators (16-17 Spetember), followed by a ministerial level meeting on 18 September. Ministers from Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, Guayana, Haiti and St Vincent and the Grenadines joined Saint Lucia’s minister Hon James Fletcher for the high level meeting. The ministerial meeting was supported by our project High Level Support Mechanism, which provided funding and two resource persons.

HLSM focuses on provision of materials and tools specifically tailored to support ministerial participation in climate related meetings requiring high-level engagement, strategic skill building activities as well as opportunities to convene in person in the form of workshops and institutionalisation within the organisations that serve the LDCs and SIDS.

The meeting, which was requested by Prime Minister, Hon. Dr. Kenny D. Anthony at the last meeting of CARICOM Heads in Barbados, took place at a strategic moment – a week ahead of the UN Climate week and the Alliance of Small Island States Ministerial meeting in NY. It sought to:

-Establish coherence among negotiators on the critical issues in the negotiations toward a new climate change agreement in Paris in December 2015;

-Apprise of the areas of convergence and divergence in the ongoing climate change negotiations;

-Prepare Ministers for a meeting of the AOSIS in New York on September 24, on the eve of the Post 2015 Development Agenda Summit.

Saint Lucia holds lead responsibility for climate change and sustainable development within CARICOM.