Climate change is already affecting what Saint Lucian farmers can grow, how reliably they can produce it and the availability of water, according to Agriculture Minister Lisa Jawahir.
She says the impact is also being felt in fisheries and could ultimately affect the affordability and accessibility of nutritious food.
“A changing climate affects what our farmers can grow, where they can grow it, and the reliability of their production. It affects our fish and marine resources. It affects water availability and ultimately the affordability and accessibility of nutritious food,” said Jawahir, who has responsibility for agriculture, fisheries, food security and sustainable development.
Speaking on Wednesday at the Bay Gardens Hotel in Rodney Bay during the presentation of a new study on climate risks facing children in the Eastern Caribbean, the minister said Saint Lucia was already experiencing intense rainfall and flooding, prolonged dry spells, water shortages, coastal erosion and rising temperatures.
“Climate change is not an abstract future scenario; it is our lived reality,” she said, referring to Saint Lucia and other small island developing states in the Eastern Caribbean.
Jawahir said those conditions had consequences beyond the environment.
“When drought reduces agricultural production, the consequence can reach the dinner table of a family already struggling to make ends meet,” she said.
“When water becomes scarce, households must make difficult choices about how that limited resource is being used.”
She added that when livelihoods in agriculture, fisheries, tourism and other sectors were disrupted, the resulting economic pressures were carried into homes.
“Our vulnerability is therefore not only environmental, it is social, developmental, and intergenerational,” she said.
Jawahir was addressing the presentation of the Child-Centered Climate Analysis for Building Resilience, commissioned by the UNICEF Eastern Caribbean Area Office and conducted by Meru Labs across Saint Lucia, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
The study examines climate hazards alongside socioeconomic conditions to determine how children, schools, health facilities and livelihoods are affected.
More than a third of children, schools and health facilities across the six countries are currently located in areas exposed to at least three climate hazards. Under a high-emissions scenario, that figure could rise to more than nine in ten by mid-century.
Jawahir said the child-centred approach helped show where climate vulnerability intersected with poverty, education, health, food and water security, housing, livelihoods and social protection.
“Climate resilience, food security, and sustainable development are inseparable,” she said.
She said investment in climate-smart agriculture, water security and resilient systems went beyond protecting economic sectors.
“We are protecting families. We are protecting communities, and ultimately we are protecting our children.”
Jawahir said the research should be used to identify gaps, strengthen national planning and guide where governments and development partners direct resources.
“The findings presented today should therefore not simply sit on our shelf,” she said.
“It should help us identify gaps. It should challenge our assumptions, strengthen our national planning, and should inform how governments and development partners direct resources toward the communities and populations where they have the greatest impact.”
During a question-and-answer session later in the day, Jawahir returned to the issue, saying governments had a responsibility, particularly to vulnerable children, to act on the evidence.
“The investment case that we’re making is to ensure that governments see the need to invest,” she said, adding that countries should also pursue funding mechanisms to prevent the challenges identified in the research from becoming reality.
Jawahir said the findings needed to be reflected in government strategies and policies and should also make their way into annual budget discussions.
“We need to make sure when there are budget discussions, some of these issues on climate are reflected as something that the Ministry of Finance should see the need to say, you know what, we need to put money now on a yearly basis so that we don’t get our children to that place,” she said.
She used an umbrella to illustrate the difference between preparing for climate threats and responding after the damage had begun.
“So that our children will have umbrellas when the rain starts, not buying the umbrella when it’s raining,” she said.
Jawahir also said children should not be treated only as people affected by climate change but should have a place in discussions about the response.
“Our children must not be viewed only as vulnerable recipients of assistance. They must be recognised as participants, innovators, and partners in building resilience,” she said.
“Their voices absolutely belong in this conversation.”
She reaffirmed Saint Lucia’s commitment to working with regional and international partners to strengthen climate resilience and said the evidence now had to translate into action.
“We must move from evidence to policy, from policy to investment, and from investment to measurable improvements in the lives of our people,” Jawahir said.
