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The threat of disaster doesn’t just come from the skies or the oceans: it comes from the quiet and compounding strain on national budgets. At COP30, Small Island Developing States (SIDS)—a global community facing disproportionate risks from the climate crisis—are pleading with the world to honour the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold initially outlined in the Paris Agreement. Most SIDS are caught in a vicious cycle where severe weather events decimate critical infrastructure, high reliance on imports further strains resources, and mounting debt limits their ability to invest in resilience projects they desperately need.
Guardian Media spoke with Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) Executive Director, Dr Colin Young, at COP30 yesterday about some of the priorities for the region. Young hopes that the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) reflect the urgency of the situation and are 1.5 degree-aligned (in reference to the Paris Agreement).
He said, “We simply cannot adapt our way out of climate change. So, if we’re not cutting emissions in line with the science, the impacts like we saw in Jamaica with Hurricane Melissa, that is only going to increase, because every fraction of a degree increase translates into severe losses and damage.”
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