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Bahamas spends $4m over climate change
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The Tribune
Chester Robards
Business Reporter
crobards@tribunemedia.net
THE BAHAMAS has thus far spent more than $4 million on learning about climate change and how to combat its effects, which could drive the cost of living through the roof in the future, the director of the Bahamas Environmental, Science and Technology (BEST) Commission said yesterday.
Philip Weech said the Government has received much of this money for major climate change studies and alternative energy reviews from entities such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), plus some private offerings. A large majority of the grants and funding was only donated to the Government over the past two to three years.
According to Mr Weech much of this money has been pumped into finding ways to decrease this country's dependence on fossil fuels for energy production, through exploring alternative energy options such as wind and solar.
A large portion of grant money from the IDB has also been injected into finding ways to make the Bahamas Electricity Corporation a more efficient, and profit making, entity.
Dr Peter Kouwenhoven, a climate change expert who spoke at the high-level policymakers workshop on Climate Change and Sea-Level Rise yesterday at the Sheraton Cable Beach resort, said the Bahamas could see a 20 per cent reduction in rainfall within the next 40 years and incremental increases in temperature over the same period.
This reduction in rainfall is expected to put a strain on Bahamian water supplies, as water tables receive less rainfall, and could have a crippling effect on the cost of water and energy if reverse osmosis plants have to be used to desalinate sea water.
Dr Kouwenhoven also noted that as temperatures rise, the need for central cooling systems grows. This could also put a strain on the country's energy needs, and therefore drive the cost of living up.
And while the Government has dedicated itself to moving energy production in the direction of green technology, as changes to the climate progress, development of reliable energy will become more of a necessary commodity. Thus the mitigation of fossil fuel use could be forced into deferral for more years than planned.
Dr Kouwenhoven also unveiled Bahamas SimCLIM, prepared for this country by CLIMsystems in Hamilton, New Zealand.
The system is designed to "assist users in their assessment of effects of impacts of climate change in the Bahamas".
The system should be able to quantify potential temperature and precipitation changes, quantify the range of potential climate changes on an island level scale, quantify the rate of sea level rise, analyse extreme weather events and analyse the impact of climate change on the Bahamas.
The Bahamas appears as one of the top three countries most likely to be directly affected by climate change in many studies, including one penned by the lead environmental economist for the World Bank.
The World Bank study found the Bahamas to be in danger of facing losses in coastal population, coastal Gross Domestic Product and coastal urban areas, due to storm surge intensification, and was ranked number one of 10 countries in each of those categories.
From: http://www.tribune242.com, 31 May 2010.
