Climate Change Technocrats Gather to Discuss Climate Change Measures

Exactly one week after Hurricane Lisa wreaked havoc on Belize City and surrounding environs, the experts in disaster risk management and drafting climate change policies began a two-day workshop to look at just what measures Belize needs to take in order to be better able at coping with the impacts of climate change. To take these steps, statistics and indicators will play a crucial part, as News Five’s Marion Ali discovered today.

Marion Ali, Reporting

One week after Hurricane Lisa battered Belize City and the Belize District, technocrats are gathering for a two-day workshop on climate change policies, measures and resilience capacity. The experts are from the Statistics Division of the Economic Commission for Latin American Countries, ECLAC, and personnel from the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management. The workshop is spearheaded by ECLAC and it offers technical support to Belize. Dr. Abdullahi Abdulkadri explained that its all about collecting relevant data that would help Belize put in place the right methods and measures to effectively adapt to climate change.

Abdullahi Abdulkadri

Dr. Abdullahi Abdulkadri, Coordinator, Statistics & Social Development, ECLAC

“The end goal is that we have a situation in which we improve the capacity of our countries, in this case Belize. To improve their capacity to collect data and produce data on environment, climate change and disaster to be in a position to disseminate the data that they have to use the data and improve the use of the data among the policy makers.”

Deputy Chief Environmental Officer, Edgar Ek says that there are already priority indicators that have been developed by the United Nations Statistical Division. Belize will adapt the ones that are relevant to us and we might develop others that are necessary. This workshop, he says, will help the people here along that path.

Edgar Ek

Edgar Ek, Deputy Chief Environmental Officer, D.O.E.

“They are going to show us step by step how to create those indicators so that at the end of the day, when we do further assessment and get more information we will be able to do that with our national data and present that.”

Hurricane Lisa that struck Belize a week ago, with damages still evident across the city and elsewhere, provides an example for the need to come up with this type of information, Ek said.

Edgar Ek

“Based on what happened with Hurricane Lisa and other hurricanes that have hit the country, we have seen that there is a need for information, for data, for indicators. That the government, the policy makers, the decision-makers will be using in terms of making those decisions, designing those strategies, those plans, if there is a need for legislation then they could be based on the scientific information that we are going to collect through this process.”

Marion Ali for News Five.