Every year, we join people across the planet in commemorating World Environment Day on June 5. This is a day where we especially highlight the need for transformative changes to policies and choices that enable cleaner, greener, and more sustainable living. We need to make transformative changes that help us live in harmony with nature, and shift to a more conscious approach to our economic and trade policies.

Yes, we celebrate this day and amplify its important message. But as Barbadians, the truth is that each day serves as an environment day for us. With the rising sea levels impacting our island, from Six Men’s to Silver Sands, worsening quantities of Sargassum Seaweed blanketing our shores, and the days and nights getting warmer, we know and feel the effects of the Climate Crisis in our nation.

On April 9, 2021, La Soufriere, which had been dormant since 1979, erupted in St Vincent and the Grenadines. In Barbados, we were impacted by the thick clouds of smoke and ash. Mere weeks later, on June 17, we were impacted by a freak storm and three months later, Hurricane Elsa became the first major hurricane to hit the country since 1955, impacting homes, destroying crops, damaging livestock in the hundreds of thousands and resulting in damage in excess of US $35 million.

In just three months, we all saw first-hand the way the world had changed, and the need to respond in a comprehensive manner. Under our Roofs to Reefs Programme, we started the Home Ownership Providing Energy (H.O.P.E) initiative, providing affordable and climate resilient homes for our citizens, harnessing solar energy to power homes, reducing the dependence on immediate power restoration after a power outage, and reducing overall electricity costs.

With hurricane straps being made available to low-middle income earners, the Government intends to make the housing stock of Barbados resilient to the impending threat of natural disasters. The Barbados Water Authority has initiated the Water Sector Resilience Nexus for Sustainability Programme to help tackle the challenges faced by lower water reserves and longer periods without rainfall.

Meanwhile, Mission 1 of Declaration of Mission Barbados asserts that by 2030, Barbados will be a clean and beautiful large-ocean state, championing sustainable development locally and globally – with the goal of all domestic activities becoming 100 per cent sustainable by 2035.

This social compact establishes consensus that we cannot do it alone and must work together, foster commitment, distribute leadership and share responsibility for achieving the missions. In 1972, when the motto for the Stockholm Conference was “Only One Earth”, our earth was a very different place. 

More than 50 years on, however, this statement is as important as ever. This planet is our only home. This year’s campaign for World Environment Day 2023, “Beat Plastic Pollution”, calls on all parties in the distribution and supply chain to support the reduction of plastic waste in our oceans.

The good news is, we have already started this journey to beat plastic pollution. In January 2020, the Control of Disposable Plastics Act came into effect. Barbados banned the importation, distribution, sale and use of single-use plastic containers, cutlery, straws and the importation, manufacture, distribution, sale and use of plastic bags made with a petroleum-based resin. This was only a small step in the fight to beat plastic pollution.

Unfortunately, the Sustainable Development Goal dedicated to our oceans SDG 14 – Life Below Water, is the least funded of all the goals. UNCTAD’s latest Trade and Environment Review 2023 revealed that only 1.6 per cent of development funding has been allocated to the ocean economy between 2013 and 2018, “far below the amount required to address the ocean crisis. 

What’s required is a global “Blue Deal” to invest in safeguarding marine resources and building a resilient ocean economy that benefits all”. If the global community seeks to seriously address issues of plastic pollution, environmentally hazardous materials and climate change, equitable access to finance is the only solution to achieve this.

More must be done and can be done through the execution of the Bridgetown Initiative 2.0 and implementation of debt-for-nature projects. The Caribbean islands are not net producers of carbon emissions, yet we are asked to contribute to the global reduction of greenhouse gases on par with advanced countries with robust economies. 

Small economies simply cannot maintain the levels of sustainable socioeconomic development required by international organisations whilst increasing resilience to exogenous challenges, natural disasters, and climate change, without the appropriate funding.

For Barbadians, World Environment Day means more than an annual theme to raise awareness. It is a daily reality of the need to protect our planet through responsible consumption and production practices and creating an even playing field for sustainable economic development to occur.

Happy World Environment Day! Together, let us “Beat Plastic Pollution”, but more importantly, let us continue to champion the Sustainable Development Goals, continue the path to Mission Barbados, and create the best environment for all calling Barbados home.(PR/GIS)