Prime Minister Issues Statement Ahead of Copenhagen Climate Conference

Statement by the Rt. Hon. Hubert A. Ingraham Prime Minister & Minister of Finance Commonwealth of The Bahamas

(Nassau, Bahamas) - In short order I will leave for the United Nation’s 15th Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, along with the Minister for the Environment, Earl Deveaux, and other Bahamian officials.

In Copenhagen I will be joined by fellow Caricom leaders and leaders from throughout the world, including Commonwealth partners who recently met in Trinidad and Tobago to forge a consensus on one of the more complex and pressing issues I have dealt with over three non-consecutive terms as Prime Minister.

While matters of national security, including crime and immigration, are at the forefront of the national agenda, as is vigorously responding to the current economic crisis, my Government also has the urgent task of responding to the multiple challenges, short- and long-term, posed by global warming and its related effects on The Bahamas.

Climate change is also a national security issue as it poses a direct and potentially devastating threat to our way of life, our territorial integrity, our economic well-being and our survival.  It draws limited resources away from other national priorities including resources which should be directed towards education, health care, housing and social assistance.

Days after becoming Prime Minister in 1992, my new Government dealt swiftly with the ravages of Hurricane Andrew in the northern and central Bahamas. In a sense, this destructive storm was a sign of the times, as the consensus of the scientific community is that such hurricanes will become more intense as global temperatures continue to rise.

That we have been spared any major storms this year is something for which we should all be grateful, but which we cannot take for granted. Still, we are threatened not only by more severe hurricanes; but also rising sea levels which can wreak havoc on our archipelago.

Further, coral bleaching due to increasing sea temperatures and acidification of our oceans, promises not only to threaten some aspects of our tourist industry, it also poses a threat to our marine resources, food supply and general health.  Dying and dead coral will have a severe impact on our entire ecosystem, including the very land on which we live.

Over the course of three non-consecutive terms in office, in an urgent and deliberative effort to protect and preserve our natural environment generally, and alarmed over the potential effects of climate change, successive FNM administrations have pursued a comprehensive environmental strategy.

That strategy includes the creation of the Bahamas Environment Science and Technology Commission (BEST) in 1994, the implementation of an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process, becoming a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and in 1999 becoming the eighth country in the world to sign the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Over three terms in office the FNM has more than doubled the national park system, bringing to 700,000 acres the amount of marine and terrestrial areas protected.  This is approximately two acres for every Bahamian citizen. During this term we are committed to further increasing land and marine areas to this national patrimony and to working with the Bahamas National Trust and The Nature Conservancy to implement the ecological gap assessment which identifies those areas that are critical to maintaining the integrity of the naturally productive ecosystems of The Bahamas.

Last year in Bonn, Germany, The Bahamas joined with The Nature Conservancy to launch the Caribbean Challenge which has been described as “an unprecedented commitment by Caribbean governments to support and manage new and existing national parks and protected areas throughout the region and protect at least 20 percent of their marine and coastal habitats by 2020.”

As a part of this commitment, the Government of The Bahamas is identifying such areas for protection and has committed $2 million to capitalize The Bahamas Protected Area Fund as a means to create sustainable finance mechanisms to effectively manage our growing national system of protected areas.

Our efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change and protect our future also include the development of strategies and programmes in the areas of energy generation including renewable energy, disaster preparedness and management, biodiversity protection, forest preservation, water and sewerage management and land use.

These efforts also include plans to reduce emissions from electrical plants by converting to a more environmentally friendly technology and cleaner burning fuels. Introduction of renewable energy sources such as wind, waste to energy and solar that would tie into the grid are being investigated. 

With regard to land use, my administration is proud to have initiated the legislative process and public discussion that will lead to the enactment of a bold and forward looking Planning and Subdivisions Bill that will better integrate development and planning efforts while protecting the environment.

My Government appreciates that there is more work to be done in these areas. We will continue to do so with the same diligence with which we have sought to be effective and ethical stewards of our environment.

Our efforts must also include continued work in the area of sustainable tourism -- tourism, of course, being our main economic engine, and an area in which the reduction of carbon emissions is of both domestic and global importance. These efforts will include initiatives in ecotourism as well as heritage and cultural tourism.

Over the course of my administrations I have been determined to demonstrate clear and consistent leadership on one of the greatest issues of our time -- what the Port of Spain Climate Change Consensus calls the “predominant global challenge”.

Because we share a single vulnerable planet, that leadership must not only be local or here at home. It must also be regional and global.  This is why I have joined with my fellow Caricom and Commonwealth heads of government to help forge a consensus on effective responses to climate change, including vigorous mitigation strategies for more vulnerable states such as ours.

And this is why I will join leaders from throughout the world, in Copenhagen, to press for “a comprehensive, substantial and operationally binding agreement … leading towards a fully legally binding outcome no later than 2010” to reduce carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases.

Such an agreement should also provide for “the legitimate development aspirations of developing countries” as the world’s leaders also negotiate the financing and other mechanisms “needed by developing countries to engage in reducing their emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change”.

The Bahamas heads to Copenhagen with an enviable and clear environmental record and determined environmental leadership by your Government and various domestic environmental organizations.   We will state our case from a position of strength, both ethically and because of our considerable record and long-term vision.

I believe it is incumbent upon all of those with a role to play in environmental education to make a greater effort in this direction.  I have invited media leaders here today to ask them to partner with the Government, environmental organizations, educational institutions and the church in educating our people about the causes and effects of climate change.

In addition to our efforts in regional and international forums, it is also important that we become more conscious of our own actions at home and our responsibility to conserve and protect the wonderful patrimony that The Bahamas archipelago represents. We must all be stewards of God’s creation and especially our own natural heritage.

I take with me to Copenhagen not only the best practices and environmental needs and successes of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, I also take the hopes and aspirations of all Bahamians for a meaningful agreement that will preserve our way of life and our nationhood.  Upon my return I will report to the nation on the results of the meetings in Copenhagen.

I thank you in advance and I thank you for your attention today.