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The National Climate Change Office (NCCO) is preparing to host the fourth annual Climate Week; an event aimed at raising awareness about Climate Change. The week will be observed in Belize City with a series of events from August 25-28. The NCCO has been the entity tasked with disseminating information about climate change to the public, private sector, local communities, schools, and relevant stakeholders since its creation in 2015. Climate Week is one of the major initiatives coming out of the NCCO, which is held at the community level to deliver that information. Representatives from the NCCO appeared on the Morning Show today to share more about the upcoming activities. Monitoring, Reporting and Verification Officer Kamil Salazar says that the major focus of Climate Week is youth engagement.
Kamil Salazar, MRV Officer, NCCO: “This year we’re doing it even bigger and making it available to the entire public. So anyone can come. Everyday once a day, several times a day so we’re having different things and I think it’s a very important thing that we get it out because like you mentioned people are aware that climate change is happening but I think they don’t know the seriousness of it until a hurricane is coming an then they associate that with climate change. But there’s so many more things to it and I think if we don’t start with our youths, you mentioned that even some of the world leaders they don’t fully accept the seriousness of climate change but how do we start to ensure that our own Belizean people do ? I think we need to start with our youth because these are the people who will become our leaders in the future. And so we have always had them included. We work with different youth groups that we know about, different schools and even some that work with the city councils and we’ve always had the included but not just to show up and be a part of the audience but we have them involved in the actual activities. If we’re hosting panels we train them to be moderators for panels or even on the panels and I think it’s a great way of getting them involved in the conversation because they’re kind of forced to do some of their own research so that they’re able to communicate with some of the professionals who have been in these fields for quite some years.”
The various issues of climate change can get very technical, which underscores the need for the NCCO to carefully craft its messages while delivering important information. Among the issues being highlighted at this year’s climate week is Belize’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which detail Belize’s steps to reduce greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.
Sumeet Betancourt, Deputy Chief Climate Change Officer: NCOO: “Essentially this is Belize’s national climate change action plan which informs what it is we’re doing in regards to mitigation, reducing our emissions and adaptation how we’re adapting to increased sea level rise, increase droughts, what actions we’re taking to do that. So what this action plan does is establishes a collective target and related actions for specific sectors. So it’s not only about responding to hurricanes, for instance we have targets within the energy sector in terms of transitioning to more sustainable renewable energy. The agriculture sector utilizing climate smart agriculture practices or waste management improving our infrastructure and also for the forest sector how we’re focusing on reforestation so these are targets that are including in our National Climate Change Action Plan, our NDC and what is unique or important about this is that it is a collective effort that captures the key stakeholders from each sector within the energy sector whether it’s from government, NGOs, civil society, private sector, it’s what they’re endorsing as look this is what we can do within this sector to reduce our emissions and adapt to the changes.”
Previous Climate Week activities have been held in San Ignacio, Dangriga, and Orange Walk Town.
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