By Tecla Fontenard
Climate change continues to raise degrees of uncertainty about our future and for young people across the Caribbean and the World, this uncertainty is amounting to a precariousness of balancing life and death. With their future at stake, children and young people need to be armed with information and knowledge on this global issue as they will feel the brunt of climate change. Keeping them informed should be more than just a passive rendezvous. It should be a compassionate endeavour that nurtures them to become climate champions and drives them to take meaningful climate initiatives.
In June, as part of our climate literacy programme, we took an awareness outreach programme to a cluster of Primary and Secondary Schools in Antigua and Saint Lucia. We not only provided information on climate change impacts in the Caribbean, but also tested their knowledge through various activities and games.
Students at the Primary School level were powered up during the sessions. Demonstrating their interest in the subject, they said: “the place is getting hotter”, “more storms are coming”, “people will die due to heat waves”, “the sea is getting warmer and the sea animals will die”.
Nathan Laurent, a 10-year-old student from Bendals Primary School in Antigua and Barbuda stood out when he voluntarily made a statement at the end of the presentation. “Climate change is bad for the Caribbean” he lamented. “When I think of it, the waters are rising because of icecaps melting, and this can make the islands of the Caribbean smaller”, he told us. Nathan’s concerns are not far-fetched. Climate studies continue to show rapid warming of the earth. The relationship between higher temperatures and sea ice extent is surely a cause for concern as melting seasons continue to indicate anomalies with wide-ranging impacts on small islands. According to the 6th IPCC report, continued relative sea level rise is very likely in the ocean around Small Islands and along with storm surges and waves, will exacerbate coastal inundation. Furthermore, in Caribbean islands, sandy shorelines are projected to retreat by about 80 m by 2050 and more than 100m by 2100, the report indicated.
While many children may not be confident to state that they have heard of climate change when the topic is introduced, it doesn’t mean they will retreat from discussions. At the 3 Primary Schools, we visited in Saint Lucia, children aged below 10 years eagerly raised their hands to express what they understood by the term. Some of the youngest boys and girls volunteering to respond to questions were as young as 5 years old at the Boguis Combined School and Des Barras Primary School. Both Schools are in remote parts of the capital, Castries, and have some of the smallest school populations on the island. If the older generation is not serious about reducing fossil fuel use, the children will inherit a worse planet than what we have now.
When engaging teenage students on the topic, across both states of Saint Lucia and Antigua and Barbuda, they showcased their knowledge by highlighting what they had observed as climate change impacts on their Member States. “Prolonged periods without rain, longer dry seasons, extreme heat, droughts, crop damage, ecosystem damage, decreased shorelines, and all-round economic consequences” were just some of the examples they listed.
One notable student at the Babonneau Secondary School identified the dire consequences of dry weather on farming when he stated that, “Excess heat is impacting farms, and this can potentially lead to food shortage and even starvation”. Every year, around 13 million people die because of climate-related factors. Research shows that climate change jeopardizes the long-term sustainability of the planet and is viewed by climate and health experts as the single biggest health threat facing humanity.
The children of the Caribbean need a cleaner, greener earth that is free of fossil fuels, and they are ready to get involved. This was obvious at 3 Secondary Schools in Saint Lucia, when students noted the type of climate change projects they would like to see at their Schools: “a solar farm to give clean energy to our school; a food garden, a water storage system, a wind farm, separating waste on the school compound, and awareness marches.”
Building climate literacy among young people should remain a critical priority. They need to be viewed, supported, and recognised as critical agents of social inclusion and change.
