Go Lean…Caribbean

The Bahamas, finally installing solar arrays, wants to send a message to the world – Big Polluters in particular – that societies can transform to alternative energy sources, use less fossil fuels and abate Climate Change.

Go on and preach …

It is good that the Bahamas is making this pursuit, as a formal government initiative – it’s about time! Actually it’s past time; (see the Alternate VIDEO below).

Unfortunately, the Bahamas is so tiny – 400,000 people compared to the 7,700,000,000 global population (.0052%) – that they are not even a “pimple on the back-side of the beast” that is the world’s large population centers.

But, as related in a previous blog-commentary on December 19, 2018 by the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean, small countries have “No Moral Authority” to preach to these Bigger Nations unless they themselves comply with the best-practice of using renewable energy.

“Welcome to the fight Bahamas”; now that you are taking serious the need to deploy “Solar Micro-grids”, you can stand on the soapbox and point at others. Only with these installations can you “name, blame and shame” the Big Polluters – think China, India and the USA. This was alluded by the the US-based media-television-network CBS , in their titular news magazine show 60 Minutes, in this story this week. See the VIDEO here of the 60 Minutes report:

VIDEO – Bahamas installing solar power after storms – https://www.cbsnews.com/video/bahamas-hurricanes-power-grid-solar-60-minutes-2020-03-01/

60 Minutes
Posted March 1, 2020 – A tiny country in “Hurricane Alley” is trying to be an example to the world after Category 5 storms demolished parts of its electrical grid. Bill Whitaker reports on the Bahamas’ adoption of solar energy.
Click on PLAY Button to watch; expect commercial advertising before and during.
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Alternate VIDEO
60 Minutes’ first report on solar energy, in 1979
More than four decades ago, 60 Minutes reported, “Solar energy may be an idea whose time has come for all of us.” Today, the Bahamas is turning to solar arrays to restore power after Hurricane Dorian
Click here to see that 1979 VIDEO: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-1979-solar-energy-report-2020-03-01/

That Sunday March 1, 2020 report revealed that:

The solar systems are now cheaper than diesel power options.
The Bahamas goal is to produce 30 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030.

How about more … in less time.

Yes, we can …

We must “fight like our lives depend on it”. The technology is here now to produce all the energy from renewable sources for households, or businesses, or government buildings, or schools.

Do you see the trending here? We must all do something … now. What are we waiting for? The will? Well, the Bahamas seems to now have the will …

… and the way.

… and the motivation – Category 5 hurricanes are a “clear and present danger”.

This is an appropriate time to Encore that previous blog-commentary from December 19, 2018 – 9 months before that devastating Category 5 Hurricane Dorian made landfall in the Northern Bahamas. Now that this is March 2020, there is the opportunity to look back at the previous submission and echo an encore appeal “we must fight like our lives depend on it”. This desperation was depicted in this 60 Minutes story. This entry is 3-of-3 in that “Look Back“. The other entries are cataloged as follows:

1. 60 Minutes Story – Bahamas Self-Made Energy Crisis
2. 60 Minutes Story – Go Green … finally
3. 60 Minutes Story – Moral Authority to “Name, Blame & Shame” the Big Polluters

See the Encore of that December 19, 2018 blog-commentary here-now:

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Go Lean Commentary – 5 Years Later – Climate Change: Coming so fast, so furious

A little less conversation, a little more action – Elvis Presley song

3 years ago – Paris COP21 – the world came together and devised a plan to tackle the global threat of Climate Change. This year, many of the same players came back together to implement the actions.

So we went from “planning the plan” to now “planning the action”.

This is a slow-motion response to a fast-moving threat.

This commentary is the second of a 4-part series – 2 of 4 – from the movement behind the Go Lean book in consideration of the 5 year anniversary of the book’s publication. The theme on these 4 submissions is “5 Years Later and what is the condition now“. The focus here is on the Agents of Change that the book identified: Globalization, Climate Change, Technology and the Aging Diaspora.

The first entry in this series asked the question: “Have the problems lessened, or have they intensified?

The answer is so emphatic! Climate Change has been all the rage in these 5 short years. The fast-and-furious threat is more than just academic; this is real-life and real-bad; especially for us in the Caribbean.

The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

1. 5 Years Later: New Post Office Eco-system – Globalization issues ‘loud and clear’ now.
2. 5 Years Later: Climate Change – Coming so fast, so furious.
3. 5 Years Later: Technology – Caribbean fully on board.
4. 5 Years Later: Aging Diaspora – Finding Home … anywhere.

The Go Lean book was written 5 years ago as a 5 Year Plan to reform and transform the Caribbean region. Had the plan been adopted by the regional stakeholders, then the Agents of Change would have been better addressed. The plan, or roadmap, to introduce and implement the Caribbean Union Trade Federation is still rearing to start; and while we cannot single-handedly solve Climate Change, we can better prepare the region for the heavy-lifting involved. The book describes the community ethos to adopt plus the many strategies, tactics and implementation that need to be executed.

After the 2013 publication of the Go Lean book, many countries came together for COP21 (December 2015), also known as the Paris Accords. As alluded to above, this year’s follow-up, Katowice (Poland) 2018 had a few less participants for this “put speech into action” plan. See the news article about COP24 here:

News Title: Nations agree on rules for implementing Paris climate agreement
Sub-title: Nations dragged a deal over the line Saturday to implement the landmark 2015 Paris climate treaty after marathon UN talks that failed to match the ambition the world’s most vulnerable countries need to avert dangerous global warming.

Katowice, Poland – Delegates from nearly 200 states finalised a common rule book designed to deliver the Paris goals of limiting global temperature rises to well below two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit).

“Putting together the Paris agreement work programme is a big responsibility,” said COP24 president Michal Kurtyka as he gavelled through the manual following the talks in Poland that ran deep into overtime.

“It has been a long road. We did our best to leave no-one behind.”

But environmental groups said the package agreed in the Polish mining city of Katowice lacked the bold ambition needed to protect states already dealing with devastating floods, droughts and extreme weather made worse by climate change.

“We continue to witness an irresponsible divide between the vulnerable island states and impoverished countries pitted against those who would block climate action or who are immorally failing to act fast enough,” executive director of Greenpeace Jennifer Morgan said.

The final decision text was repeatedly delayed as negotiators sought guidelines that are effective in warding off the worst threats posed by our heating planet while protecting the economies of rich and poor nations alike.

“Without a clear rulebook, we won’t see how countries are tracking, whether they are actually doing what they say they are doing,” Canada’s Environment Minister Catherine McKenna told AFP.

At their heart, negotiations were about how each nation funds action to mitigate and adapt to climate change, as well as how those actions are reported.

Developing nations wanted more clarity from richer ones over how the future climate fight will be funded and pushed for so-called “loss and damage” measures.

This would see richer countries giving money now to help deal with the effects of climate change many vulnerable states are already experiencing.

Another contentious issue was the integrity of carbon markets, looking ahead to the day when the patchwork of distinct exchanges — in China, the Europe Union, parts of the United States — may be joined up in a global system.

“To tap that potential, you have to get the rules right,” said Alex Hanafi, lead counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund in the United States.

“One of those key rules — which is the bedrock of carbon markets — is no double counting of emissions reductions.”

The Paris Agreement calls for setting up a mechanism to guard against practices that could undermine such a market, but finding a solution has proved so problematic that the debate has been kicked down the road to next year.

‘System needs to change’

One veteran observer told AFP Poland’s presidency at COP24 had left many countries out of the process and presented at-risk nations with a “take it or leave it” deal.

Progress had “been held up by Brazil, when it should have been held up by the small islands. It’s tragic.”

One of the largest disappointments for countries of all wealths and sizes was the lack of ambition to reduce emissions shown in the final COP24 text.

Most nations wanted the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to form a key part of future planning.

It highlighted the need for carbon pollution to be slashed to nearly half by 2030 in order to hit the 1.5C target.

But the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait objected, leading to watered-down wording.

The final statement from the Polish COP24 presidency welcomed “the timely conclusion” of the report and invited “parties to make use of it” — hardly the ringing endorsement many nations had called for.

“There’s been a shocking lack of response to the 1.5 report,” Morgan told AFP. “You can’t come together and say you can’t do more!”

With UN talks well into their third decade sputtering on as emissions rise remorselessly, activists have stepped up grassroots campaigns of civil disobedience to speed up action on climate.

“We are not a one-off protest, we are a rebellion,” a spokesman for the Extinction Rebellion movement, which disrupted at least one ministerial event at the COP, told AFP.

“We are organising for repeated disruption, and we are targeting our governments, calling for the system change needed to deal with the crisis that we are facing.”

Source: AFP – France24 News Service – Posted December 16, 2018; retrieved December 18, 2018 from: https://www.france24.com/en/20181215-cop24-poland-climate-summit-deal-paris-climate-agreement-negotiations-un-environment

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VIDEO # 1 – Nations agree on rules for implementing Paris climate agreement – https://youtu.be/SBUZS3cl2X0

FRANCE 24 English
Published on Dec 17, 2018 – Nations dragged a deal over the line Saturday to implement the landmark 2015 Paris climate treaty after marathon UN talks that failed to match the ambition the world’s most vulnerable countries need to avert dangerous global warming.

Visit our website: http://www.france24.com

FRANCE 24 live news stream: all the latest news 24/7 http://f24.my/YTliveEN

• Category: News & Politics

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VIDEO # 2 – UN climate talks: ‘A transition to a greener economy is possible’ – https://youtu.be/qqbQ1hyWc_Y

FRANCE 24 English
Uploaded on Dec 15, 2018

Subscribe to France 24 now: http://f24.my/youtubeEN

FRANCE 24 live news stream: all the latest news 24/7 http://f24.my/YTliveEN

Visit our website: http://www.france24.com

• Category: News & Politics

One notable absentee from Katowice has been the United States of America. This is due to the sad fact that the “Leader of the Free World” – a moniker assigned to the US President – is a Climate Change denier. Donald Trump campaigned on his denial and has manifested his dismay with subsequent actions. His blatant disregard was previously detailed in a prior Go Lean commentary from June 1, 2017, as follows:

Its June 1st, the start of the Hurricane season. According to Weather Authorities, it is going to be a tumultuous season, maybe even more destructive than last year….

Thanks Climate Change.

What hope is there to abate the threats from Climate Change?

Thanks to the Paris Accord, there is now hope; (we remember the effectiveness of the accord to abate “Acid Rain”).

But wait! The American President – Donald Trump – announces that he is withdrawing the United States from the Paris Accord. WTH?!?!
…

The Caribbean status quo is unsustainable under the real threats of Climate Change. The region must reboot, reform and transform. We must do the heavy-lifting ourselves; we cannot expect relief and refuge from others, like the American Super-Power. We must find and “sail” under our own power. 🙂

The Caribbean is more on the frontlines of Climate Change distress than the US – think hurricanes. We do not have the luxury to deny, defer and dispute. We must “batten down the hatches” and prepare for the worst. (Many claim this is also the disposition of many American destinations, think California forest fires). So we must take the lead ourselves for our own relief!

The Caribbean frontlines have been depicted in many previous Go Lean blog-commentaries. Consider the sample – as follows – highlighting some of the many Climate Change-infused storms that have impacted our region and others over the short timeframe – 5 years – since the publication of the Go Lean book:

So it has been 5 years since the publication of the Go Lean book. Climate Change was identified as an Agent of Change that the region was struggling with and losing. Since then, conditions have worsened. The book asserts that the entire region must unite in order to “hope for the best and prepare for the worst”. The “hope” is really a call to action, that the regional neighbors would confederate and join in to the global campaign of mitigating and abating Climate Change. This aligns with the first pronouncement (Page 11) of the opening Declaration of Interdependence:

i. Whereas the earth’s climate has undeniably changed resulting in more severe tropical weather storms, it is necessary to prepare to insure the safety and security of life, property and systems of commerce in our geographical region. As nature recognizes no borders in the target of its destruction, we also must set aside border considerations in the preparation and response to these weather challenges.

The Go Lean book – a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) – presents a 370-page roadmap for re-booting the economic, security and governmental institutions of the 30 member-states in the Caribbean region, especially in light of the realities of Climate Change. While this is a global battle, we, the Caribbean member-states, are on the frontlines, so we must be doubly prepared for the surety of destruction from this threat. We must do our share and “Go Green” to arrest our own carbon footprint. We must not be hypocritical as we call on the Big Polluting nations to reform – we must reform ourselves, so as to have moral authority.

As detailed in a previous blog-commentary, the dire effects of Climate Change may be irreversible after the next 12 years, if we do not work to abate this disaster. So we must fight!

This is an inconvenient truth: We must fight like our lives depend on it. A product of these COP24 Katowice Accords, is now definitive plans and rules for implementing abatements around the world; carbon footprints must be reduced … globally, now!

A change has now come to the Caribbean region. This is Climate Change and it is not a good thing. Now is the time for a permanent union to provide efficient stewardship for our economic, security and governing engines. All regional stakeholders – the people and governing institutions – are hereby urged to lean-in to the empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. Yes, we can … make our region, these islands and coastal states, better places to live, work and play.

There is the successful track record of abating environment pollution: remember Acid Rain in the 1990’s. So despite the doom and gloom, mitigation and abatement of Climate Change is conceivable, believable and achievable. 🙂

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. 

Download the free e-book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!