Obama and the Caribbean

By Dana Niland
CJ Contributor

US President Barack Obama met with Caribbean leaders this week in Paris to discuss climate change negotiations.

In his meeting with the Alliance of Small Island States negotiating group at COP21, Obama highlighted the impact of climate change on the world’s most vulnerable countries, which face rising sea levels that threaten to submerge their habitable land.

The leaders of Saint Lucia, Barbados, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, among others, attended the meeting, which was intended to elevate the role of the countries in the Paris negotiations.

ASOIS nations have been campaigning at the Paris conference for “ambitious action” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as current projections indicate that some countries may disappear entirely if action is not taken.

“These nations are not the most populous nations, they don’t have big armies,” Obama said. “But they have a right to dignity and sense of place.”

Obama also said that he feels a special connection to the island countries as a result of the time he spent as a child in Hawaii and Indonesia.

CARICOM Chairman, Prime Minister Freundel Stuart of Barbados, and Lead Head of Government on Climate Change, St Lucia Prime Minister Dr Kenny Anthony of St. Lucia, also represented the region in a Monday meeting between United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the leaders of Small Island Developing States.