Belize could face dire economic losses of hundreds of millions of dollars if it does nothing to offset the impacts of climate change, claims a report released by the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP) at the Radisson Fort George Hotel in Belize City this afternoon.
The report, titled “Belize and Climate Change: The Cost of Inaction”, is authored by Robert B. Richardson, Ph.D, of Michigan State University.
The document indicates that Belize’s climate in the decades ahead would very likely be characterized by hotter and drier conditions, impacting residents on social, economic and environmental fronts. However, the emphasis today was on what climate change would cost Belize for the next few generations in dollars and cents.
Diane Wade-Moore, Environmental Programme Analyst for UNDP, and Earl Green, Technical Advisor for the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center, a center based in Belize, gave a PowerPoint presentation of the highlights of the report.
The report says that Belizeans would have to grapple with warmer and hotter days and nights, more frequent heat waves, more intense hurricanes, more storm surges and sea level rise, as well as less available water.
“Generally, small holders and subsistence farmers are expected to be relatively more vulnerable to negative impacts,” said the report. “Changes in climate conditions are expected to increase malnutrition and infectious disease rates, and variation in the distribution and incidence of tropical diseases such as malaria and dengue fever is expected with even moderate increases in global temperatures.”
Richardson’s report says that, “…three staple crops [rice, maize, and beans] are important to Belize’s food security as well as for export income, and reductions in yield for these crops alone would represent BZ$13-18 million in lost revenue. Sugar and banana production are likely to face risks from encroachment of salt water in nearby river streams.”
Apart from agriculture and fisheries, the report also focuses on energy – noting that the cost of additional energy demand, with greater need for cooling, would be $13 million by 2025 and $71 million by the year 2100.
The tourism impacts could be as large — $11 million by 2025 and $59 million by 2100; the sector could lose $20 million to $48 million by 2080, the report said.
The estimates are based on the assumption, of course, that Belize carries on with the status quo.
Speaking at today’s launch, UNDP’s deputy resident representative, Richard Barathe, said it would be cheaper for Belize to act now, to avoid these costs. Belize needs to link areas such as energy, land use, and waste management to policies that address the root causes of climate change, explained Barathe.
Small countries, such as Belize, are not the biggest culprits of conditions said to breed climate change, such as harmful gas emissions. Belize produces much less than one percent of the emissions circling the globe, he indicated. However, Barathe advised that they should, nevertheless, ensure that their interests are also taken into account in December, at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
At today’s launch, Barathe presented Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Economic Development, Commerce, Industry and Consumer Protection, Yvonne Hyde, with a copy of the UNDP report.
Hyde, in her remarks, said that “signs of the times” have already been manifested in Belize – such as the recent unprecedented floods and the loss of 75% of the country’s pine stock, which has meant that Belize has had to import pine. The technicians suggest that climate change may have bred environmental conditions that nurtured a growing population of the pine beetle pest that destroyed much of the local stock.
In presenting closing remarks, Kristine Blokhus, Assistant Resident Representative of UNDP, said Belize is in an ideal position, as it relates to Central America and the Caribbean, to be able to consolidate a strong regional voice at Copenhagen in December.
The UNDP’s climate change report on Belize was designed by Contracorriente Editores, El Salvador, and printed by Impresos Múltiples, S. A. de C. V. in that same country.