The Trust Fund is a newly established and independent scheme aimed at raising money to tackle the territory’s climate change-related issues, by increasing energy efficiency and utilizing alternative energies.

After residents give their feedback on the applicants by September 16 this year, nine persons will be chosen to sit on the Board.

The selection will be done by Premier Dr D Orlando Smith and Dr Kedrick Pickering who is the minister of natural resources and labour.

For the month of July 2016, a total of 33,665 documents were retrieved from the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre’s (CCCCC) Regional Clearinghouse. A list of the top 20 documents are listed in the table below. If you would like to research and read other documents from CARICOM member states visit the CCCCC’s Clearinghouse.

The Regional Clearinghouse is an extensive repository of Caribbean specific information on climate change and information exchange system for climate resilient decision-making.

It helps users to:

• search, access, request and contribute digital documents, project reports and scholarly articles related to climate change in the Caribbean
• View climate projections by country
• Search the CCCCC hardcopy and CD library
• Access the 2011 Regional Project Stock Take
• Learn more

By using the Clearinghouse Search, decision makers and practitioners will be able to retrieve, request, contribute  and exchange information and data on climate change in the region.

On a warming Earth, seas inevitably rise, as ice on land melts and makes its way to the ocean. And not only that — the ocean itself swells, because warm water expands. We already know this is happening — according to NASA, seas are currently rising at a rate of 3.5 millimeters per year, which converts to about 1.4 inches per decade.

However, scientists have long expected that the story should be even worse than this. Predictions suggest that seas should not only rise, but that the rise should accelerate, meaning that the annual rate of rise should itself increase over time. That’s because the great ice sheets, Greenland and Antarctica, should lose more and more mass, and the heat in the ocean should also increase.

The problem, or even mystery, is that scientists haven’t seen…

Worthy of being cherished?

W.J. Astore

The U.S. Constitution and especially the Bill of Rights is the foundation of our democracy.  If you had to pick a right to celebrate, perhaps even to cherish, which would it be?  There are so many important ones, such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, our right to privacy (the fourth amendment), and so on. There are other amendments that righted old wrongs, including prohibitions against slavery and the granting of the vote to Blacks and women.

Yet which right/amendment is the best known in U.S. politics today?  The second amendment, or the right to bear arms, which Mike Pence referred to yesterday when he noted, “people who cherish the Second Amendment have a very clear choice in this election.”

OK, I’ve owned guns and enjoy shooting, but I hardly “cherish” my right to spend thousands…

UNOPS is seeking to recruit a Legal Water Expert to develop a national Water Legislation/Act for the government of Mauritius.

Vacancy code: VA/2016/B5303/10626

Position title: Legal Water Expert

Level: ICS-11

Department/office: AFR, KEOH, Kenya

Duty station: Home based

Contract type: International ICA

Contract level: IICA-3

Duration: 4 months

Application period: 10-Aug-2016 to 18-Aug-2016

For more information on the complete Terms of reference and how to apply, kindly visit the UNOPS Global Personnel Recruitment System website.

20 years ago I dived the Great barrier Reef for the first of dozens of times. Whilst in Cairns I attended a diving seminar focused on the GBR. The fantastic Irish marine biologist conducting the seminar suggested we all congratulate each other for being the last generation to dive the GBR before it died.

What he didn’t explain thoroughly, is that the reef systems are the incubator of the oceans and represent beginning of the marine food web. That web is unraveling rapidly in a nonlinear, exponential manner.  A full 90% of the planets oxygen is produced by the flora and fauna in the oceans and the bulk of the planets protein emanates from them. This will soon collapse and there will be no more food nor oxygen coming from those oceans, chaos, death and suffering will prevail on a planetary level.

Runaway abrupt climate change will extinguish most, if…

Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Hon. Daryl Vaz (standing, left) and General Manager, Country Department, Caribbean Group, Inter-American Development Bank, Therese Turner Jones (standing, right), observe as (from left) Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Audrey Sewell; Managing Director, Development Bank of Jamaica, Milverton Reynolds; General Manager, JN Small Business Loans, Gillian Hyde; and Programme Manager, Environmental Foundation of Jamaica (EFJ), Allison Rangolan McFarlane sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the Adaptation Programme and Financing Mechanism Project at Jamaica House, in St. Andrew, on July 28. Under the initiative, US$7.2 million will be made available to micro, small and medium-size enterprises (MSMEs) in the tourism and agricultural sectors to finance climate-change adaptation initiatives islandwide.

A total of US$7.2 million will be made available to micro, small and medium-size enterprises (MSMEs) in the tourism and agricultural sectors, to…