St Lucia’s Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Sustainable Development is calling for urgent climate action that puts children at the centre of policy and investment decisions.
Minister Lisa Jawahir warned that Caribbean children are already experiencing the effects of climate change and said governments must move beyond studies and begin taking meaningful action.
Speaking at the launch of UNICEF’s “Child-Centred Climate Analysis for Building Resilience” report on Wednesday, she said young people are bearing the burden of a crisis they did not create.
“We are being asked to look at those consequences through the eyes of our children, and that is very important because children are on the front lines of a climate crisis that they did not create. And too often, when we speak about climate change, our language is dominated by numbers.”
The Minister said behind every climate statistic is a human story, pointing to the impact disasters can have on education, food security and family life.
“When a flood destroys a road, a child may not be able to go to school. When drought reduces agricultural production, the consequence can reach the dinner table of a family already struggling to make ends meet. When water becomes scarce, households must make difficult choices about how that limited resource is being used.”
Minister Jawahir stressed that climate change is no longer a future concern for the Caribbean but a reality already affecting communities across the region.
“For St Lucia, and indeed for small island developing states across the Eastern Caribbean, climate change is not an abstract future scenario. It is our lived reality. We experience periods of intense rainfall and flooding, prolonged dry spells, water shortages, coastal erosion, rising temperatures, and increasing pressures on our agriculture, fisheries, ecosystems and communities.”
But she said children should not only be viewed as victims of climate change. Instead, she argued they must be included as partners in developing solutions.
“Our children must not be viewed only as vulnerable recipients of assistance. They must be recognised as participants, innovators and partners in building resilience. Their voices absolutely belong in this conversation.”
With climate threats growing across the region, Minister Jawahir urged governments and development agencies to act on the evidence now before them.
“We must move from evidence to policy, from policy to investment, and from investment to measurable improvements in the lives of our people.”
The UNICEF-commissioned study examines climate risks affecting children in six Eastern Caribbean countries and is expected to guide future climate resilience and adaptation efforts throughout the region.