Above: a Caribbean agro-project (Photo: CCIC)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

It’s the newest way the Caribbean is working to tackle the problem of climate change: with entrepreneurship.

The Caribbean Climate Innovation Centre will be officially inaugurated in Freeport, Trinidad on Jan. 27.

The centre is an initiative of the World Bank’s infoDev; it will be inaugurated Monday by Jamaican Energy Minister Philip Paulwell, Canadian High Commissioner to Trinidad Gerard Latulippe and Trinidad Planning Minister Bhoendradatt Tewarie.

The centre has been stablished as a consortium which will be managed by the Jamaica-based Scientific Research Council and the Trinidad-baed Caribbean Industrial Research Institute.

“The goal of this innovative regional hub is to create institutional capacity to support Caribbean entrepreneurs committed to developing locally appropriate solutions to climate change,” the centre said in a statement. “To do so, the CCIC will provide local new ventures and SMEs with a broad range of services, including financing, business training, network building opportunities and policy support.”

The launch of the centre will be attended by almost 100 stakeholders in the fields of clean energy and climate technology, along with senior representatives from the World Bank and Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development.

The centre is one of eight being established around the world, including in Kenya, Ethiopia, India, South Africa, Vietnam, Morocco and Ghana.