Prime Minister Andrew Holness is now in New York City in the United States attending the 74^th United Nations General Assembly, UNGA.
 
The Prime Minister left the island last night (September 21) accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator Kamina Johnson Smith, the Minister without portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister Daryl Vaz, Parliamentary Secretary Senator Robert Morgan and Senator Mathew Samuda.
 
The delegation from Jamaica will have a packed agenda, beginning today (Sunday September 22) when Prime Minister Holness will meet with the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

The Prime Minister was named as one of three Heads of Government by the UN Secretary General to lead an initiative to mobilise Government and private sector to build political consensus and increase momentum to raise $100 billion in climate finance by 2020. Prime Minister Holness will give an update on the matter.
 
Ahead of meeting with Secretary General Guterres, Prime Minister Holness will meet with the Executive Director of the Green Climate Fund, Mr. Yannick Glemarec.
 
The Prime Minister will also hold several bilateral and speaking engagements at UNGA on Climate Action, Adaptation and Financing.
 
He will deliver key speeches at several High Level meetings during the week, which will culminate with Jamaica’s policy statement to the General Assembly on Friday.
 
Prime Minister Holness returns to the island on October 1. During his absence the Minister of National Security Hon. Dr. Horace Chang will be in charge of the Government.                                                           

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Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation (MEGJC) Hon. Daryl Vaz, is joining a Jamaican delegation headed by Prime Minister, The Most Hon. Andrew Holness to the United Nations General Assembly being convened by Secretary General of the United Nations António Guterres.

The High-Level week will kick start with the much-anticipated Climate Action Summit to be held on September 23, 2019 at the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York. The Summit, in which Jamaica is set to intervene as leader on the discussions surrounding climate finance, will also feature a series of high profile side events which will see Minister Vaz advocating for the increased and effective mobilization of public and private finance to support the adaptation and resilience needs of developing countries.

In addition, Minister Vaz who has responsibility for Land, Environment, Climate Change and Investment will be representing Jamaica in the third annual Bloomberg Global Business Forum, scheduled for September 25, which gathers the most important global leaders from the public and private sectors to address the threats from global warming to economic prosperity and examine the opportunities for solutions to protect global prosperity.  

Minister Vaz will be advocating for greater flexibility and innovation in financial instruments, increased participation of the private sector, risks and opportunities to support cleaner and greener businesses and innovative solutions in investment.

Secretary-General Guterres is hosting the Summit to get the world on track to meet the headline goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement: to keep the average global temperature increase to well below 2°C, and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Heads of State and Government and their representatives have been tasked to go to the Summit with concrete action plans and not speeches. This includes plans for achieving carbon neutrality by mid-century.

Topics such as “Volume of Financial Resources”, “Provision of Technical Assistance”, and “Access to Finance”, have been crucial points of discussion for the “Climate Finance and Carbon Pricing Track” of the Climate Summit which Jamaica co-leads, along with France and Qatar, with South Korea, Senegal, Canada, Switzerland, Denmark, and institutions such as the World Bank and the World Resources Institute also providing support.

Jamaica continues to advocate for developed countries to deliver on their commitment to mobilize US$100 billion per annum for climate investments in developing countries by 2020, in forums such as the 50th Meeting of the UNFCCC’s Subsidiary Bodies (SB50), which was held earlier this year in Bonn, Germany.

The Government of Jamaica also acknowledges the role that the private sector can play in building resilient infrastructure and is at the forefront of the call for additional technical assistance to help developing countries improve their enabling environments in order to attract additional flows of private investment.

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The Government of Jamaica has made an urgent call for members of the World Trade Organization to facilitate the necessary trade concessions, special and differential treatment and flexibilities that could assist in addressing the structural and capacity constraints in the markets of Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

The call was made today (Monday September 9, 2019),  by Hon. Daryl Vaz, Minister Without Portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, who was representing Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Andrew Holness at the United Nations Trade Forum in Geneva, Switzerland.

In his address, Minister Vaz, who has responsibility for Land, Environment, Climate Change, and Investment, noted that this year’s Trade Forum held under the theme ‘Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) and Climate Change” has special relevance.

“From the devastation of our sister island, the Bahamas, to the assessed impact of the raging fires in the Amazon, recent events have continued to cement what we have long believed – that climate change remains a grave concern, is a clear and present threat to human societies, and many countries and ecosystems are approaching the limits of their adaptive capacities”, the Minister said.

He noted that SIDS, as net food-importing developing countries, are particularly vulnerable to the impact which climate change is having on agricultural trade, including the trade in fisheries.

“Despite a narrow resource base and a heavy dependence on a few external markets it is essential that SIDS must be integrated into global value-chains. Approaches based on connections to value-chains are increasingly seen as providing a mechanism for achieving economic diversification and the Paris Agreement objectives” Minister Vaz noted.

He added that these would be positive and timely response measures and would serve as mechanisms through which to transfer technology and innovations to SIDS.

Minister Vaz further noted that in order to meet the ambitious targets described in the Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement, it was necessary to ensure that there are no loop holes in international agreements, especially Trade and Economic Agreements.

“These Agreements have typically been negotiated in fora that are separate and independent of climate negotiations”, Minister Vaz noted.  He added that “quite often, Trade and Financial Ministries employ mainly economic criteria in their policies and negotiating positions without regard to what their impact may be on carbon emissions. This failure to include the costs associated with the impact of climate change, in discussions on international trade, has resulted in an imbalance in the way emissions have been evaluated”.  

Minister Vaz disclosed that every effort is being made to mitigate this imbalance through Jamaica’s consultative mechanism, JAMTrade, as well as CARICOM’s regional negotiating mechanism through the Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN).

The Minister further noted that Jamaica has sought to ensure that climate change considerations are incorporated in policy revisions, including its Trade Policy, and the country is seeking to develop domestic monitoring, reporting and verification systems in order to enhance its transparency processes in carbon accounting.

“Despite our best efforts more remains to be done. With further technical support, knowledge exchange and the involvement of the international community, we are confident that we can collectively improve and transform the participation of SIDS in their traditional and other international markets”, the Minister said.

The United Nations Trade Forum which falls under the umbrella of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development is the last and most important international platform leading up to the United Nations Climate Action Summit and General Assembly which will be held later in September.

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Kingston, Jamaica, 29 August – Despite threats from Hurricane Dorian, participants for the National Climate Reporting Workshop arrived in their numbers for the beginning of the workshop on Tuesday, August 27 and subsequent opening ceremony on Wednesday, August 28th at the Courtleigh Hotel in Kingston, Jamaica.

Minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation with responsibility for Land, Environment, Climate Change and Investment, the Hon Daryl Vaz acknowledged in his remarks that the workshop was important as “we are all in the same fight against the impacts of climate change.  We, therefore, need to share our knowledge and best practices, and as much as is possible, help each other to become climate-resilient.”

Minister Vaz continued to highlight various events occurring around the world including the forest fires in the Amazon and Siberia that he said if left unchecked would make the planet less hospitable for humanity. The minister also pointed out that grassroot approaches such as community-based disaster preparedness and response plans that catered to physical, psychological and social, economic and vulnerabilities of persons would help to reduce how they were impacted by climate change. 

Minister Vaz pointing to Jamaica’s Third National Communication report said that it contained several assessments of vulnerability and options for coping with climate change by addressing sectors such as water resources, agriculture, human health, coastal resources, human settlement and tourism.

Alexandra Karekaho, Programme Officer at the UN Environment  Programme Caribbean Sub-Regional Office highlighted that the National Communications and Biennial Update Reports which would be generated by the countries would help the Caribbean make informed decisions and contribute to “reliable, transparent and comprehensive information on our green-house gas emissions, climate action and support”.      

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Prime Minister Andrew Holness yesterday (August 28) met with three major stakeholders in the entertainment industry and restated the Government’s commitment to protecting the Designated Cockpit Country Protected Area.

Prime Minister Holness said he understands the sensitivities surrounding the discussion on the Cockpit Country. However, he noted the Government is in a far better position to resolving the matter.

“The Government is quite advanced in a process in deciding as to whether or not there should be any mining allowed in this area. The government is exploring alternatives, it can be said that we are looking at alternatives. The Government is committed to protecting the area that has been declared. We are committed to protecting that area, we are in the process of physically marking the boundary on the ground and we are asking the public and persons involved in the area to support the demarcation.
The Government is also sensitive to the hydrological issues-particularly what is happening now. So, that will feature heavily in any decision that the Government makes,” said Prime Minister Holness.

In that regard, the Prime Minister stated that the Government has carefully examined the area that needs to be protected and has defended it to ensure that there is no intrusion from surrounding communities.
According to Prime Minister Holness, the geomorphology and hydrology of the Cockpit County will be protected from activities such as mining, deforestation and water contamination. Endangered and indigenous species of flora and fauna will also be protected, and harmful farming practices prohibited.

In addition to that, Prime Minister Holness stated that the boundary for the Cockpit Country protected area is already defined with a buffer to protect against intrusion into the forest.

“Some people are saying that there should be a buffer. But you would see that in the way in which we have defined it because we have taken in larger than what is the Cockpit Country, the buffer is already there. It doesn’t say that if there are for example water resources in areas around it, that those can’t be protected. It doesn’t say that if there is a monument or an artefact or a historic site outside of the boundary that those can’t be protected. So, there are still ways to protect assets that are not inside here,” said Prime Minister Holness.

According to Prime Minister Holness, economic activities that do not threaten the preservation of the Cockpit Country can still be considered. However, such activities must satisfy the regulations of NEPA.

In the meantime, Prime Minister Holness said the measures that have been implemented will improve Jamaica’s aesthetics.

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