May, 2024 - Channel 5 Belize

Second Hottest Day in Belize’s History According to Preliminary Data

Preliminary data indicate that today was the second hottest day in the country’s history. Belize’s hottest day was recorded in 1976 at one hundred- and ten-degrees Fahrenheit. That was recorded in Belmopan. A National Meteorological Service field station in Chaa Creek has reported temperatures as high as one hundred and eight degrees today, two degrees Fahrenheit shy of the record. But apart from the numbers, there is no denying that it has been unbearably hot over the last two to three weeks. Chief Meteorological Officer Ronald Gordon says that partially has to do with the fact that we are in May which is the hottest month of the year in Belize.

Ronald Gordon, Chief Meteorological Officer, NMS

“That coupled with favorable conditions in terms of a high-pressure ridge that is suppressing upward motion and sort of keeping us under this sinking air and as many of us would know sinking air warms up. That is contributing to the excessive hot temperatures apart from the seasonality we know that climate change is real so the extremes we have experienced before are becoming more extreme and severe and hence the reason why we are having these temperatures. This started in early May and have been going on for the last two to three weeks now. So, a very severe heat wave across the country. To make matter worst we have a lot of wildfires and bush fires, agricultural fires, with this sort of weather condition and the increase smokiness and Sarah Dust, it is the perfect combination for the sweltering unbearable condition we have been feeling for the past few weeks. We have not done a thorough analysis at this point to tell you if it is the worst heat wave ever in terms of duration. I can say one data we have or one element we have is that it has not been the hottest ever. The hottest ever recorded, as we have said before, is a hundred and ten degrees Fahrenheit and that was in Belmopan May twenty-third, 1976, and we have not reached that level of heat as yet this year and I don’t expect to get there. However, it has been comparable in some ways. We have preliminary reports from one of our weather stations in Cha Creek indicating that today may have reached a hundred- and eight-degrees Fahrenheit which is two degrees Fahrenheit less than all-time high for the country.”

When Will Belize Experience Relief from Heat Wave?

With the unbearable temperatures that Belizeans have been experiencing, the question on everybody’s mind is, when will we receive some relief? The good news is that temperatures are expected to be a bit cooler on Sunday. And according to the Chief Meteorological Officer, rains are forecasted for the early parts of June.

Ronald Gordon, Chief Meteorological Office, NMS

“Let me first go to the short term forecast and I can say that tomorrow is not going to be any big relief, so it is not going to be any significantly cooler than today. So, it is still going to be hot tomorrow. But indications are that on Sunday, on Sunday because our winds are going to shift more to the east rather than the southeast, we are going to be a bit cooler than today, Friday and even tomorrow. So Sunday we should see some sort of relief from the excessive heat. It will still be hot because we are in the tropics, and it is May, and we are in Belize. But it is not going to be as severe heat as we saw today and tomorrow. So, the peak of this heat wave we are on it right now. Today is the peak. In terms of the long-term projections, caution your viewers that long term forecast carries a lot of uncertainty. We know that climatology speaking, late May, early June we do get the initial rains and I was looking at the model forecast going to two weeks which again I repeat have a lot of uncertainty. But there appears to be a slight shift. We see a lot of moisture coming in. There seems to be a little transition around the early parts of June into a wetter pattern. Of course, we need to monitor it and see if that comes through but climatology tells us that is what should occur at that time.”

NFS says Belize Needs More Fire Stations

The past several weeks have been wrought with discomfort, as Belize experiences one of the worst heatwaves to date and while forest fires are not an uncommon occurrence for this time of year, the severity of the weather condition has made them especially difficult to manage. Earlier this week, a raging wildfire in San Pedro, Columbia destroyed up to fifteen hundred acres of farmland in Toledo. And heading northwest, several fires have laid waste to land along the George Price Highway and Mountain Pine Ridge. As these fires rage on, communities struggle to contain these infernos with limited resources. Today, we sat down with Kenneth Mortis, Station Officer at the National Fire Service, to learn how the department is combating the issue.

Kenneth Mortis, Station Officer, National Fire Service

“The statistics will show that houses destroyed as a result of open bushfires are relatively on the rise. Again, that is something that we’re looking at. So what we need to do from a fire department standpoint is take a step back on and try to dialogue with the ministry as best as we can or the government or the powers that be to see how we can now start setting up midpoint in between heavily dense area versus lower area. If you look at Belize, for example, you have Belize, then there’s a station in Ladyville, but there isn’t anything between Belize and Hattieville. So people say, well, oh, so why we have Ladyville then? You know if I send from Ladyville to eight miles on the north on the western or as Westlake then that entire Ladyville stretch is abandoned. And if I take one of my trucks from Belize and I send that to the eight-mile community then I leave Belize City handicapped because I have one truck actually for coverage. A couple nights ago, we were experienced with a bushfire on Freedom Street Belize city but then the lady called and says there’s a bushfire threatening house in eight miles. I had to respond. The last thing I want somebody to say is, we’re continuously being negligent in, in how we respond to these emergencies. Is that some of the smartest move to make? No, it’s not. But at the end of the day, as a fire department, then we must be prepared to do what we sign up for, and that is to protect this country from fires and other related disasters as best as we possibly can. So we will continue to be faced with this type of situation. The dry is upon us. It’s here. There isn’t anything we can do. It will be an extended heat wave for an extended period of time. So the best that we can do is start the fire safety from within. Whether it’s you as an individual, you as a family, you as a community, you as a neighborhood, let us see what we can do to prevent the loss of structures.”

14 Newly Trained EMT Technicians Receive Certificates

Fourteen newly trained EMT technicians received certificates after successfully completing the three-month course today. The training was offered by the Belize Emergency Response Team, BERT, whose Executive Director, Susan Ferguson told News Five that the training covered topics that first-responders would find and must deal with in patients. The valedictorian, Chassen Rodriguez said that he is the head of security at B.S.I. in Orange Walk, so having this training comes in handy for on-the-job scenarios that might arise.

Chassen Rodriguez, Valedictorian, EMT Graduation

“I already work in security field where we deal with emergency incidents and so forth. So it’s just something that I really wanted to do something that I’ve seen that I’ve had a passion in, and just decided to take on a challenge. I live in Orange Walk, so it was just basically traveling every day. To be a part of the class putting in that extra hour to study, going home, standing on the bus. It’s just basic sacrifice that you need to do if you want to excel in something. Being a first responder, knowing how to deal with different situations, different patients, you have medical patients, trauma patients. You get to a scene, you don’t know what you’re gonna expect, you just gotta be ready. The training prepared us to deal with all of that. Different types of sicknesses diseases, and different types of injuries, how to approach the scene, just ensuring overall safety.”

Susan Ferguson, Executive Director, BERT

“In this course, they learn everything from the jargons needed in EMS field. They learn about lifting, you learn about blood, about…”

Marion Ali

“CPR.”

Susan Ferguson

“Yes, they learn about CPR, all the different measures to save lives. They learn how to do a correct IV, different medications. They learn about while they are not able to administer them, but they are knowledgeable in the field of what to give and what not to do. It is a very challenging field and one of the main purposes, so one of the main source, it has to come from family support. And so you found that while your passion may be towards EMS, the timing that it takes you from family, from enjoying your life conflicts with that. And you have to have a passion for EMS. You have to have that passion within you to continue, that road that you’re on.”

BPM Asks High Court to Enforce Redistricting Consent Order

The Belize Peace Movement is asking the High Court to enforce the 2022 Redistricting Consent Order. Since the order was issued, the Redistricting Task Force has made one proposal that has been rejected by the House of Representatives. According to attorney Arthur Saldivar, there has been no new proposal since then. So, on Wednesday, May twenty-second, the Belize Peace Movement will bring the matter before the High Court once again in an attempt to ensure that the exercise is completed before the next general elections.

Arthur Saldivar, Attorney at Law

“The elections and boundaries commission agreed that the present schedule is unconstitutional. That is recorded in a consent order. They have subsequently put together a task force and produced a document call a proposal which was to remedy the unconstitutionality of that schedule. But after much monies had been spent and time passing, their proposal had not even broached the threshold of the parliament for debate. So, we are still where we were at the beginning of this process with an election looming and an unconstitutional schedule. We go to court on the twenty-second of this month, next week Wednesday, that is to have the court look at the consent order and seek to enforce it. I don’t know why we must do this. I believe every person in parliament can read. I believe every person in elections and boundaries can read and knew exactly what it was they were agreeing to, so why now is it you behave worst than children without understanding when there Is something so important as the democracy and sanctity of the democracy at stake.”

New Solar Legislation Raises Concerns Among Industry Stakeholders

A new piece of law regarding solar energy is raising serious concerns among stakeholders in that sector, including the Belize Solar Industry Alliance. Today, the BSIA brought forward several issues that it has with the solar legislation and argues that it flies in the face of Belize Electricity Limited’s mission statement. News Five spoke with Jeremiah Allen, a member of the Belize Solar Industry Alliance.

Jeremiah Allen, Belize Solar Industry Alliance

“BEL’s mission statement is as follows, I want to read it for you, I think it’s a good place to start. It says we deliver safe, reliable, sustainable energy solutions to enhance the quality of life and the productivity of enterprise and to support national development. So BSIA feels like, that BEL and PUC’s new legislation that was just introduced isn’t achieving these goals, this mission, as well as it should be and we want to ask them to come back to the table, let’s negotiate the terms and move forward together. The current legislation, in its current form has several different issues, the biggest of which is just the economic proposition that it offers for the investors, whether they’re individual homeowners or industries and businesses who want to invest in solar there needs to be an economic incentive to do so and this legislation effectively discourages that. There are many Belizeans who have wanted to invest in solar but because of the uncertainties in an unregulated environment, they have held off for now. With this new legislation discourages or disincentivizes investors in that the economics of it often don’t play very well to an investor. The economic modeling often puts the return on investments into the ten-plus year range, depending on the system size. Part of the difficulty is that calculating a return on the investment is very difficult because of the uncertainty of the fees associated under this new regulation. It’s been about nine months now since the PUC has opened up public discourse and we had been involved that entire time. We have gone and we have voiced our opinions. We have gone in private meetings and had off-the-record discussions and we feel like our voices are falling on deaf ears. Our suggestions have not been heard and this is evidenced by the fact that nothing has changed from the draft legislation that we saw nine months ago to the legislation that was implemented last month. As part of Belize Solar Industry Alliance, there are twelve business organizations that have large installations who have in excess of three to five thousand kilowatt hours per day that they could be feeding into the grid right now but they’re not. With the flick of a switch, they could be providing power into the grid, providing power for more than two hundred and fifty homes right here in Belize. It’s available, it’s installed, they want to supply it. All we need is a good regulatory framework which incentivizes that to happen.”

Energy Minister Discuss New Solar Legislation

We also spoke with Minister of Energy Michel Chebat, who weighed in on the advantages of the new solar legislation.

Michel Chebat, Minister of Energy

“The new legislation is actually geared at opening up the energy market and the energy sector and it is exactly intended for that so that people who are now using solar panels on their homes, in their businesses, may have an opportunity to sell the excess into the national grid. So it‘s quite the opposite of the statement.”

Reporter

But the new legislation will discourage the uptake of grid tied to solar in Belize. Your response to that…

Michel Chebat

“No, absolutely not. It is intended to have the excess going to the grid. I think this is, for the first time in Belize, in the history of Belize you see a piece of legislation that is actually opening up the energy sector and I think that is important because it has been dominated so far by BEL. And so, what this legislation does it really opens up the field for even new power producers. It opens it up so that people at their homes, individually, people who want to use for their businesses, people who want to use for their industrial sites can now link into the national grid, and so, for the first time in our country we are seeing where the energy market is being opened up to the entire public.”

G.O.B. Provides Update on C.C.J. Compliance Hearing

On Thursday, the Caribbean Court of Justice presided over a compliance hearing in respect of the 2015 consent order as it relates to Maya land rights. Represented during the virtual session was the Government of Belize and the Maya Leaders Alliance. Earlier today, the minister with responsibility for Indigenous People’s Affairs, Dolores Balderamos-Garcia says that there has to be a balance between what the claimants want and what government is prepared to do.

Dolores Balderamos-Garcia, Indigenous People’s Affairs

“Yesterday, there was what we call a compliance hearing. It’s done virtually because it is with the Caribbean Court of Justice judges who sit in Trinidad and, basically, the hearing went very well. Apparently there is good progress that is being made and we are hoping to finalize the Maya land policy and then move towards hiring a drafts person for the legislation and, I believe, the judges did say that we are making good progress. Now, that does not mean that the proponents or the people who are claiming can get everything that they want. There has to be a balance, there must be a balance. The idea of government suggesting or proposing that there be a circular area where you don’t have to prove that you actually live there because your houses are there, apparently that was met with a lot of opposition. So we said, okay we won’t use the circular proposal anymore but what we are saying is that if you wish to have communal land when the legislation is past, then you have to show that you have lived there for a certain period of time and we are working on the threshold. What the government has proposed is that you would have to produce an occupation for at least thirty years.”

Supporting LGBT+ Communities in Belize

The LGBT+ community in Belize continues to suffer discrimination and today being celebrated universally as a day to support the plight of this minority group, Minister of Human Development Dolores Balderamos-Garcia discussed a recent study that was conducted in the country. Minister Balderamos-Garcia spoke in the context of the National Gender Policy.

Dolores Balderamos-Garcia, Minister of Human Development

“Today is international day in support of LGBT+ communities. Now yesterday, there was an organization that presented a study done here in Belize to provide more data, because, you see, when you are responding to a problem, you have to have data. And so the study was done and the data is showing that our LGBT+ communities do suffer significant levels of discrimination. So that study was presented by the international organization working with UNIBAM. I was there and lent the support and I was also able to mention that the Government of Belize, through our National Gender Policy, is committed to reducing discrimination and to having full equality and inclusion across the board. So I was happy to participate in that as well.”

Reporter

“So what would you say was the outcome of that…”

Dolores Balderamos-Garcia

“Well the outcome was the presentation of the study which is giving us the data that we need to work with. So again, we could say discrimination against disabled people exists in Belize. Anybody can make that statement, but unless you have the actual data, you don’t know the actual level.”

Belize Launches Local Chapter of WiMAC

In honor of International Day for Women in Maritime, a ceremony was held this morning to mark the launch of the Belize chapter of the Women in Maritime Association, Caribbean. WiMAC is a regional organization under the auspices of the International Maritime Organization that is dedicated to promoting gender equality and empowering women in the maritime sector. The establishment of a local chapter is important because it provides a platform for Belizean women in maritime to connect with each other.

Dolores Balderamos-Garcia, Minister of Human Development

“Coming together is a good start. Staying together is progress and working together will be success. So I just want to say that [the] Women in Maritime Association is something that is really, really good for the promotion of gender equality because many times we don’t hear about women in leadership in the maritime sector and the fact that young Jada Sutherland has been able to spearhead this chapter in Belize is a wonderful thing. And I believe that with all of forty-three members already, I think there will be success. She spoke about one of the goals being training for women in the maritime association and I think that is absolutely good. I want to mention, too, that Minister Chebat said that in the administrative sector there is very good progress because there are between thirty percent in some areas, right up to fifty percent in terms of some of the offices in the various maritime sectors, whether public sector, private sector, blue economy, coastal zone, fisheries, all of those areas. And I was also happy to hear Senator Janelle Chanona talk about being kind to our oceans. She has been with Oceana for a such a long time and I thought that her remarks as a guest speaker were right on point. So working towards gender equality, women working together in what may be an untraditional sector and of course them having the goal of being together and promoting their women, doing the training.”