Caribbean & Central America - June 2019

Honduras and Nicaragua have been named in the top ten countries most vulnerable to climate change by NGO Germanwatch.

The organisation presented its Global Climate Risk Index 2019 during the COP24 Climate Summit in Katowice, Poland in December 2018. The index looks at how badly different countries have been impacted by weather-related loss events including heat waves, storms and floods, assigning each one a Climate Risk Index (CRI) score using data from insurer Munich Re and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

For the period 1998-2017, Honduras was the world’s second-worst affected nation. In that time there were 302.45 deaths per year due to climate change, or 4.215 per 100,000 inhabitants, with a total of 66 climate events causing total losses of US$556.56m. This is equivalent to 1.846% of GDP, according to the report. Honduras had been ranked first for the period 1997-2016, but Puerto Rico took on the mantle after suffering widespread devastation due to Hurricane Maria in 2017.

While neighbouring Nicaragua has made headlines due to the political crisis which has been ongoing since April 2018, stemming from the crackdown by the Daniel Ortega government against its opponents, the population is also facing serious challenges due to climate change. The country ranks sixth on the Climate Risk Index, with 162.60 deaths per year due to climate change, or 2.945 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, for the same period. A total of 45 climate events caused US$223.25m total losses in that time, equivalent to 1.009% of GDP. Although the situation is still worrying, Nicaragua has fallen two places since ranking fourth for the period 1997-2016.

Haiti is another nation in the region that features in the top ten, taking over fourth spot. Of these ten, eight are developing nations. While monetary losses are lower in these countries, the report says that climatic risks are higher. There is more loss of life and existential threats are more extreme due to a lack of preparation and weaker disaster response.

While both Nicaragua and Honduras have suffered a string of climatic events, Honduras has such a high ranking due to the exceptional destruction meted out by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, according to the report. Germanwatch claims that these kinds of tropical storms are set to become more intense as a result of global warming, and an increasing probability of a rapid succession of storms could have terrible consequences in developing nations that struggle with disaster relief.

Other issues affecting the region also exacerbate the effects of extreme weather events. As a transit point for drug shipments from South America to Mexico and the US, Central America and the Caribbean has suffered increasing amounts of deforestation as traffickers launder their money by buying land for cattle ranching. The Costa Rican NGO Fundación Neotrópica revealed the latest results of research which show that drug trafficking is a major driving factor in the deforestation of protected areas, and deforestation is one of a number of factors affecting the availability and quality of water. Experts also worry that extreme weather could cause a water crisis.

However, a number of initiatives are working on a response to these risks. One such scheme is the “Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility” (CCRIF SPC), which allows members rapid access to funds in case of disasters, according to Germanwatch.

• SICA

Climate change is also a hot button issue for the Central American Integration System (Sica), a collection of eight states from the region, which is currently working on a new regional strategy on climate change (ERCC). All of the Sica countries are now signatories of the 2015 Paris Agreement after Nicaragua belatedly signed up in October 2017.