Excerpt and Photo from atlanticcouncil.org

Caribbean countries are grappling with the first hurricane of the 2024 season. Hurricane Beryl, which has made history as the earliest category five Atlantic hurricane on record, has damaged infrastructure and caused widespread power outages.

Unfortunately, this is a familiar scene for the region, which routinely battles the effects of extreme weather events and climate change. Hurricane Beryl once again spotlights why focusing on the mitigation of climate change, through such methods as cutting carbon emissions, alone is insufficient. Caribbean countries must prioritize climate adaptation as the primary mechanism to withstand hurricanes and other baked-in effects of climate change.

Climate adaptation is the answer to these extreme weather events, but it requires significant investment that governments in the Caribbean cannot afford. International support, including private finance, is needed. In five months, the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, also known as COP29, will take place in Baku, Azerbaijan. It has been dubbed the “finance COP,” and there governments and the private sector should come together and show the commercial utility of prioritizing climate adaptation. Doing so can unlock new financing and create project pipelines that are commercially attractive to global investors.