He said: “Most of our debt is directly related to the consequences of climate change, hence I just mentioned that the loss of damage from hurricanes over the last five years has added at least $5 billion to our national debt, not to speak to the disruption that those incidents cause and not speaking to the recovery efforts and the loss of economic activity.
In the case of Hurricane Dorian, we are – but the suggestion from Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis is that there should be a measure of debt forgiveness for small countries affected by climate change. The CO2 produced around the world drives climate change – but the effects may fall on very different shores than those of the polluters, namely our own. The five biggest producers of CO2 are China, the United States, India, the Russian Federation and Japan. So, who should bear the financial costs of that? Nations such as ours? Our carbon footprint is minimal compared to the biggest countries producing the most carbon dioxide. Hurricanes themselves are fuelled by warmer water – global warming increases the temperature and has a knock-on effect on the size, frequency and range of such storms. Put simply, that means more often, deadlier. Was Hurricane Dorian a one-off event? Or is it a symptom of a greater pattern?Ī number of studies have suggested that hurricane trends are linked to climate change. The damage, however, carried a financial toll, one that The Bahamas had to bear, even though there was a helping hand from others in the aftermath.Įstimates vary but, according to the Inter-American Development Bank, Dorian caused about $3.4 billion in damage, about a quarter of our nation’s GDP. The cost of the lives lost in the storm is immeasurable, there is no price you can put on a life. It bore down on Abaco and Grand Bahama and ripped the islands to pieces.
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