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PRESS RELEASE
Ministry for Tourism and the Environment announces TCI Climate Change Summit
On 1st April 2022 Honourable Minister Josephine Connolly today announced the Turks & Caicos Islands’ Climate Change Summit. The event, the first of its kind for the territory, will be hosted at the Shore Club on Earth Day, April 22nd, under the theme: Only One Earth: Invest in Our Planet.
“The Summit will play host to local and regional stakeholders with key aims of raising intentions on all fronts and finalizing the implementation of the Turks and Caicos Climate Change Charter. Greater ambition is required to adapt to the pertinent threats we face due to climate change, including loss and damage from extreme climatic events. Finalizing the Climate Change Charter commitment will enable the Turks and Caicos Islands to forge a resilient path ahead, through unity, to secure livelihoods for today and the future,” stated Honourable Minister Connolly at a press conference this morning.
The Summit will be attended in-person by local and regional stakeholders from the public and private sectors. The event will also be accessible to the Turks & Caicos Islands’ community through social media streaming.
Young people are encouraged to get familiar with the topic of Climate Change through a poster competition hosted by the Department of Environment & Coastal Resources (DECR).
“The poster competition is critical in enabling school students to research, understand and consider how they can become the change today, and for the future,” encouraged Permanent Secretary Cherylann Jones, for the Ministry of Tourism and the Environment.
Director for the DECR, Lormeka Williams indicated that time was of the essence as the global community works towards limiting the projected temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next eight years. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report, published in 2018, indicated that by 2030 the planet would reach its carry capacity of greenhouse gases. Should we, as a human race, exceed this carrying capacity scientists predict that a catastrophic and irreversible climatic chain of events will ensue.
The DECR and the Ministry for Tourism and the Environment are looking forward to hosting this momentous event, elevating the conversation of Climate Change and how it affects us all, as well as hearing from experts about Climate Change impacts and mitigation measures that we can take as a nation.
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April 06, 2022