Turks and Caicos Islands

7.3. Energy Supply and Distribution
There can be little doubt that tourism is an important and growing energy-consuming sector in the
Caribbean. If this growth continues, vulnerabilities associated with higher energy prices as well as global
climate policy will grow concomitantly.
Any Caribbean nation’s ambition should thus be to reduce its energy use and to increasingly use renewable
energy produced in the region. In practice, this appears to be hampered by the lack of detailed databases
on energy use by sub-sectors, which is a precondition for restructuring energy systems. To this end, Francis
et al. (2007: 1,231) suggest that:
Finally, given the absence of a more detailed database on energy consumption and GDP in Haiti,
Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago, further research can be directed at two important issues.
First, with wider data on energy consumption and GDP (total and sectoral), a decomposition
analysis could be undertaken, which can add value by identifying the main drivers, a useful
approach to the formulation of effective policies.
These insights also apply for other islands. While an energy and emissions database would thus be
paramount to the understanding, monitoring and strategic reduction of greenhouse gases, it also appears
clear that energy demand in all islands could be substantially reduced at no cost, simply because the
tourism sector in particular is wasteful of energy, and because carbon management allows for the
restructuring of markets. Furthermore, technological options to develop renewable energy sources exist,
and can be backed up financially by involving carbon markets as well as voluntary payments by tourists. In
order to move the tourism sector forward to make use of these potentials, it appears essential that policy
frameworks focusing on regulation, market-based instruments and incentives be implemented.
7.4. Agriculture and Food Security
The state of agriculture and food security in Turks and Caicos as they relate to climate change revolves
around several key priorities which include:
Developing an agricultural sector
Building local farmers’ capacity to increase food production under existing climatic conditions
There is a need for a clear policy for agricultural development in the islands with a focus on North and
Middle Caicos which offer the most suitable conditions for food production.
7.5. Human Health
The vulnerabilities of the health sector to climate include weather related morbidity and mortality and
diseases that are affected by changes in temperature and rainfall patterns. A number of emerging and reemerging
communicable diseases such as malaria, dengue and influenza present lingering threats to the
health sector of the Turks and Caicos Islands. Based on a combination of hard data and grey data used to
inform the vulnerability and adaptive capacity sections of this report it is very difficult to make definitive
statements about the Health Sector of the Turks and Caicos Islands. However, the data suggests a number
of trends which include that the population is vulnerable in a number of ways, most notably to vector
borne diseases, potable and accessible water supply related issues and the spread of acute respiratory
infections. It is further evident that these factors can have an impact on other sectors, most notably the
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