bartenders get it

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Today was day 5 of our “Gracias Por Nada” campaign at COP 16 in Cancun Mexico. 

Climate change is not a fun subject matter to deal with by any stretch.  The devastation that rising sea levels will cause on small island states, the droughts and food shortages it will cause others, the increase in extreme weather patterns, and the many other direct and indirect consequences of our changing climate is as serious an issue as we have ever faced.  Despite the seriousness of the subject matter we have been dealing with in Cancun it has been an interesting experience to speak with so many delegates, journalists, and NGO reps from all over the world and hear their stories of how climate change will affect their homes and people.

Today I spent some time talking with Dr. Kennrick Leslie, the Executive Director of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center (CCCCC) in Belize.  Dr. Leslie laid out to me all the effects that climate change will have on Belize including the loss of the Barrier reef due to coral bleaching, the negative impacts on food security, tourism, and the permanent loss of land due to rising sea levels.   Dr. Leslie showed me some pamphlets his organization had printed which contains the slogan “Aim for 1.5 to stay alive” referencing the 2 degree warming mark that is considered the tipping point for runaway climate change.   I expressed to Dr. Leslie that some people believe that we have already committed the climate to a 2 degree warming and asked him if he believed it is possible to keep climate change to under that pivotal mark, he answered that it was not but that he did believe it would be possible to go past that mark and then pull back, but at that time he said “the damage will have already been done”. 

Dr. Leslie was very familiar with Canada’s inaction on climate change and our current federal government’s prioritizing of tar sands developments over the desire that most Canadians have for the country to develop and implement a plan to reduce emissions.  He also expressed his belief that our prioritizing of tar sands developments over investments in clean energy will hurt the country economically in the long run.
“10 years from now China and Asia will supersede western countries in terms of renewable energies” he said, “Western countries will have to catch up”.

Dr. Leslie’s statement echoes concerns raised in an Environmental Defence report released in October of this year:  http://environmentaldefence.ca/reports/falling-behind-canadas-lost-clean-energy-jobs

On the shuttle back to the hotel I was thinking about the conversation I’d had with Dr. Leslie while I looked out the window at the coastline of Mexico.  While thinking about the effects that rising sea levels will have on Dr. Leslie’s country of Belize and looking out towards the ocean it amazingly dawned on me for the first time that this conference is taking place in an area that is incredibly vulnerable to the effects of rising sea levels.   Considering the amount of urbanization and tourism in the area rising sea levels would be devastating to the area’s people and economy.

While writing this blog in the hotel bar I decided there was one more person with whom I wanted to discuss the effects of climate change with before calling it a night, and that was the bartender Eduardo.  I showed Eduardo a BBC article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7977263.stm#map) that contains a map of cities most at risk of rising sea levels and asked him how he felt about his home being listed as particularly vulnerable.  Eduardo was not happy with this news and explained it to me like this: “Do you see what is just over there?” he said while pointing towards the water just a short distance away, “If what is over there comes over here then where will I be?” he paused and then said “Not here, that’s where!”.   I get the feeling Eduardo likes it just where he is.

Ian Carey, Environmental Defence