Members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) political alliance have voted to form their own negotiating bloc at the UNFCCC, without undermining the G77 and China group or the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), a high-level official revealed this month.

Caribbean Community heads of government voted in July to establish a separate UNFCCC negotiating group, CARICOM Climate Envoy James Fletcher said on a webinar about COP31.

CARICOM did not issue any public statement to this effect at the time.

“The Caribbean must become more strategically organised,” Fletcher said.

“Those [G77 and AOSIS] relationships remain extremely important, but CARICOM also needs the capacity to coordinate its own positions more systematically and to ensure that Caribbean priorities are being advanced throughout the negotiating process.”

The new CARICOM bloc would not replace or weaken AOSIS, he stressed.

“CARICOM will operate as a coordinated group within AOSIS, improving burden sharing and strengthening the collective influence of SIDS,” he added, referring to small island developing states.

CARICOM is made up of 15 mostly anglophone and independent member states, plus eight overseas territories as associate members.

AOSIS encompasses 39 members across the Caribbean, Pacific, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea.

The much larger G77 and China group counts 134 countries, covering most of the developing world.

Caribbean Community negotiators and ministers are currently meeting in Miami to prepare for COP31 next month in Antalya, Turkiye.

CARIBBEAN PRIORITIES

While CARICOM has diverse COP priorities, it intends to make the most of the Turkish COP presidency’s 35-by-35 electrification goal, Fletcher said.

The official target means raising the global share of final energy demand met by electricity to 35% by 2035.

“For the Caribbean, that electrification discussion presents a major opportunity. We spend enormous amounts importing fossil fuels when many of our countries possess abundant indigenous renewable energy resources,” Fletcher said.

However, he added, mere electrification isn’t enough: the push to electrify global economies must prioritise low-carbon, affordable, and equitable sources of electricity.

“The energy transition must [lower] energy costs and reduce energy poverty rather than deepen them,” he said.

“We need a just energy transition that does not simply substitute one form of inequality for another.”

Other CARICOM priorities include heightened mitigation ambition, stronger adaptation action, and greater and more accessible loss and damage finance.

Last year, Hurricane Melissa caused roughly $12 billion worth of damages in Jamaica, Fletcher cited. Meanwhile, the official UN Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) has been pledged around $820 million.

“It shows you the mismatch that that exists, that one country could have completely depleted the funds that are pledged – not available, pledged – in the [FRLD], and still not make a serious dent in its recovery effort.”

By Alejandra Padin-Dujon – [email protected]