Inception Report - CDEMA

Appendix 4: Annotated Outline of the Model Community-Based Climate Change
and Disaster Risk Reduction (MCCCDRR) Programme
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
To be completed in final version: the definition of these terms will be taken from the
Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM) Strategy and Programme Framework 2007-
2012; and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) glossary of climate change
terms i .
LIST OF ACRONYMS
To be completed in final version
1. BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
There is a general consensus that climate change is already happening and that its impacts will
likely get worse before they get better. The nations of CARICOM 7 contribute less than 1% to
global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (approx. 0.33% 8 ) (World Resource Institute, 2008),
yet these countries are expected to be among the earliest and most severely impacted by
climate change in the coming decades, and are least able to adapt to climate change impacts
(Nurse et al., 2009).
Climate change and disaster risk reduction are inextricably linked and the region has decades of
experience with climate-related disasters that have resulted in loss of lives and livelihoods. It
follows, therefore, that if preventative measures are taken to avoid disasters, resilience to a
climate-related event is enhanced and a first line of defence against climate change is
established. A practical application of this would be to use knowledge and expertise about
building resilience to existing climate variability as a starting point for developing adaptation
policies, taking into account that climate change will exacerbate existing climate hazards.
It is important to mention that climate hazards do not always cause disasters. It is the
combination of a hazard event with an exposed, vulnerable and ill-prepared system (country,
institution, community, household, or ecosystem) that results in a disaster. This combination is
even more likely to happen since climate change will increase the frequency and/or severity of
weather and climate hazards (IPCC Fourth Assessment Report), and climate change will
simultaneously increase communities’ vulnerability to natural hazards due to the combined
effects of ecosystem degradation, reduced availability of water for ecosystems and agriculture,
and changes in peoples’ livelihoods (UNISDR).
Communities are often vulnerable because they have few livelihood assets that would improve
their adaptive capacity to hazards. And of all the factors that make communities vulnerable,
poverty is the most significant. Participatory approaches to community disaster risk reduction
that empower communities to protect their own livelihoods are therefore now widely used.
7 Members of CARICOM: Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti,
Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and
Tobago. CDEMA’s participating states include all CARICOM states as well as Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Turks
and Caicos Islands.
8 The Caribbean Islands contribute about 6% of the total emissions from the Latin America and Caribbean Region
grouping and the Latin America and Caribbean Region is estimated to generate 5.5% of global CO 2 emissions in
2001 (UNEP 2003).
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