Caribbean leaders are trying to get the message across that climate change is a very real and present danger for the region. From Brinkwire: 

Leaders from Caribbean islands are urging President Donald Trump to take climate change seriously before they disappear due to extreme weather conditions, according to reports.

Hurricane season poses an existential threat to the islands as increased rainfall caused by climate change makes hurricanes stronger, experts say. Recently, leaders from the Caribbean began urging Trump to understand the gravity of global warming.

“In 2017, we saw some of the most devastating and destructive hurricanes we’ve seen in our history,” Selwin Hart, Barbados’ ambassador to the U.S. told The Guardian. “This needs to be recognized…. This isn’t some scientific debate, it’s a reality with loss of life implications. We need the U.S. to be back at the table and engage. It’s imperative. We wouldn’t have a Paris climate agreement without the U.S. and we need them back now.”

Ricardo Rosselló, governor of Puerto Rico, added that the U.S. territory “remains in a more vulnerable situation than other states…. It is expected that some of the initial effects of climate change will be seen in Puerto Rico.”

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Trump, however, has repeatedly expressed skepticism about climate change, claiming that it was a hoax promoted by the Chinese to hurt U.S. businesses. The administration has also floated the idea of reviving the U.S. coal industry and drilling for more oil and gas, both of which would increase climate-warming carbon emissions. The U.S. has already produced more greenhouse gases than any other country, and most world leaders agree that it would be nearly impossible to fight climate change without the participation of the U.S.
With this in mind, leaders in the Caribbean are preparing for the worst, developing new revenue streams that can withstand the impact of climate change and collecting data to determine just how radically the future of their countries will change.

See the full Brinkwire article for more. 

[Image: Russell Watkins/DFID]