Engendering climate resilient societies for sustainable development

By Wayne CampbellWayne Campbell is an educator and social commentator with an interest in development policies as they affect culture and or gender issues. Photo: Courtesy photoHurricane Beryl has gone but we are left to pick up the pieces. Those Caribbean islands which were impacted by Hurricane Beryl are now in a state of assessment and rebuilding.& Jamaica, Grenada and St. Vincent are the countries in Caricom that have been impacted the most. Barbados was impacted to a lesser extent.& The hurricane which lashed the southeastern Caribbean with life-threatening winds and flooding& made history before it even made landfall.& Beryl became the earliest hurricane to reach Category 5 strength on record in the Atlantic Basin. Beryl also became the& earliest Atlantic hurricane on record with winds of at least 150 mph.& Perhaps, the two most riveting lessons to be learned from the passage of Hurricane Beryl are that Caribbean governments must pay more attention to climate change and the rebuilding process must include technologies associated with renewable energies.& Climate change has a very tangible impact on Small Island Developing States (SIDS).& This impact is located in the destruction of communications, energy and transport infrastructure, homes, health facilities and schools. The...