FACE-OFF
Dr. christopher hackett: barbados United Nations ambassador.
by TONY BEST
THE RACE IS ONE BETWEEN Barbados and Germany.
The two are vying to become the headquarters of the global Adaptation Fund, which is to be decided by delegates at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
Backed by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the other members of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), Barbados has entered the race for the fund’s secretariat which the small island states are pressing the international community to establish, in order to help them cope with the fallout from global warming, the rise in sea level and other aspects of climate change.
“For a number of AOSIS countries, adaptation is an important pillar of the climate change programme moving forward,” said Dr Christopher Hackett, Barbados UN ambassador.
“We have been calling for the creation of an Adaptation Fund that would assist AOSIS countries in particular in adapting to the climate change situation. The decision has already been taken to create the fund, but the next stage is to have it operational and located. We do expect a decision on the location at the Climate Change Conference.”
Prime Minister David Thompson and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Senator Maxine McClean have been spearheading the island’s campaign, but Germany is expected to put up stiff competition for it because of its international leadership role in climate change discussions.
“We have made our presentations to the board of the fund and to the sub-committee looking at the question of the location. It is not going to be easy but we have maintained our position and our request and we have to wait and see what the final decision will be,” Hackett said.
The island-nations that belong to AOSIS have argued that the Adaptation Fund should be located in a small country as an indication of the seriousness of the challenges they face.
The secretariat is considered a choice plum because it would be responsible for a budget of tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, depending on the contributions from the world’s rich nations.
Thompson, who attended an AOSIS summit in New York in September, said then that he fully expected Barbados to be chosen and he based that confidence on the support the country was receiving from the small island states around the world.
“I believe we will prevail,” he said in New York.
As for the broad issues at the conference, Hackett said that CARICOM states and other AOSIS members were hoping that the conference, which began on Monday and ends next week, would reach agreement on a legally-binding Climate Change Agreement that addresses questions of mitigation and adaptation.
“We believe it is extremely important to have a legally binding agreement,” the ambassador said.
“A number of the developed partners indicated that it would be difficult to have a legally binding agreement and they have started to say ‘let’s have a politically binding agreement’ with the expectation that it would become legally binding in 2010.” (Nation News)