Jamaica has benefitted from climate finance due to its sound fiscal management, but much more is needed to meet its needs for climate resilience.
 
Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Senator the Hon. Matthew Samuda, made the comment today,  during a panel discussion on ‘Scaling up Climate Finance: Investment for a Livable Planet’ during the 78th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York.
 
“Currently, we have in place a $764 million facility with the IMF, which is targeted at resilience and sustainability. This is focused at decarbonizing our economy as well as building the resilience both physically and fiscally within our space. We also have a $960 million emergency facility that we can draw down should we have any catastrophes. Additionally, we were the first country in the Caribbean to have a CAT Bond, which is valued at US$175 million”, he noted.
 
On the subject of Jamaica’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), Minister Samuda noted that the updated NDCs were primarily geared towards significantly reducing the country’s carbon footprint.
 
“We expect that half of our energy will be produced by renewable sources by 2030.  We will start a 45-megawatt floating solar system over our largest reservoir within weeks. Our water system is the largest user of electricity in Jamaica, so it’s very important that we start to decarbonize that. We will also go to market for 100 megawatts of clean energy production”, he said.
 
However, he added that the process of financing projects of this nature is difficult, particularly for  Small Island Developing States (SIDS), like Jamaica. 
 
“As SIDS, we really have a capacity gap. It’s understood, but it (the funding) has not helped sufficiently, because ultimately to build the sorts of transactions that do facilitate the crowding-in of finance is difficult, and when you have a small public bureaucracy developing those sorts of programmes, it’s difficult”, the Minister noted.
 
Minister Samuda added that it is essential to move quickly with capacity support, to ensure that SIDS and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are able to take advantage of opportunities for resilience.

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