Caricom cancels special summit

It was billed as a two-day session to follow up on a number of decisions and issues at last month’s Caribbean Community leaders summit in Trinidad, but the weekend informal retreat in Dominica will no longer take place for logistical and other reasons, officials said this week.

Current bloc Chair and Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit had floated the idea of a summit without the usual pomp and ceremony, cultural presentations and speeches by at least five different people, contending instead that leaders in informal garb should simply assemble in Roseau and iron out a number of contentious but unfinished issues including free movement of all Caricom nationals within the bloc of 15 nations.

Some leaders complained that the time between early last month’s conference in Trinidad and this week was too short to allow them to properly prepare for another summit even though it was informal. Others said they are still working with technicians to pave the way for free movement and travel for all categories of citizens as this is a key component of the free market system in the region.

The result is that the August 18-19 summit has been scrubbed. Skerrit had argued that the region needs to properly prepare for the annual global climate change summit in the United Arab Emirates from the end of November to mid-December, officials said this week. Proper preparation for the summit by a region feeling the brunt of climate change effects must be done properly, Skerrit had argued.

“COP 28 is coming. We need to have a clearly defined and cohesive position going into COP 28 where everyone of us will speak from the same hymn sheet. There is also the need for climate financing, the need for the reform and transformation of the international finance system and architecture so that we can have a better deal for ourselves in the Caribbean,” said Skerrit.

The region has had an impressive showing at the last two summits, with Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley functioning as the de facto spokesperson for the region but most governments say they are disappointed with unfulfilled promises by polluting nations to provide climate financing for developing nations, many of them the victims of changing weather patterns including stronger and more deadly hurricanes.

Caicom and other Third World nations have been pressing the developed world to fulfill promises to set aside $100 billion to help the worst affected countries but the Belize-based Caribbean Community Climate Change Center says the west is shifting the proverbial goalpost.

“The US$100 billion by 2020, when it was agreed, was seen as the floor. It is now seen as the ceiling. Even the most creative of accounting has shown that they have not achieved that. The last that we saw from the climate policy institute is them coming in at US$83.3 billion, and this includes everything under the sun. So even with that, you find that they are US$17 billion short. They still have some way to go,” said the center. “The world does have that amount of money. We need only look at the Ukraine War. We see what happened under COVID-19 and what they were able to do. It is not a lack of money, it is a lack of desire.”

Other key issues for the now abandoned summit had included an extensive discussion on crime and security as a number of countries-Jamaica, Trinidad, St. Lucia, The Bahamas, St. Vincent and Barbados, have complained about uncomfortable spikes in gang activities and murders in recent months.

No new date has been fixed for the informal summit, the secretariat said.