Dickson Igwe. Photo: VINO/File

Reefs like mangrove provide safe habitats for sea life such as the fish that support the local fishing industry and that provide food for the VI population and people all over the world. Coral reefs are a major component of VI ecology and tourism.

And anyone who appreciates the joys of snorkeling and diving, and who has done so since the 1980s, will notice an alarming decline in the number and quality of coral reefs that surround the islands of the archipelago. Why has this happened? The experts have stated that increased carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere has driven up ocean temperatures, resulting in the melting of polar icecaps, increased acidification, and negative impacts on fish stocks, with certain species of fish disappearing altogether from certain areas.

Global warming is melting the Antarctic and Arctic ice mass. This is raising sea levels. Rising temperatures are also contributing to the warming of the oceans. This is impacting negatively the ecology of the oceans. For island communities such as these Virgin Islands this is a critical matter. Islands are uniquely impacted by global warming and its effects on the environment.  

Coral reefs are critical to VI tourism and ecology. Swimming, snorkeling, and diving are leisure activities of the VI guest and visitor. Researchers from the American Association for the Advancement of Science state that global warming and ocean acidification will cause corals to become increasingly rare on reef systems. Climate change leads to the declining quality of sea water, drives overexploitation of key species, and tips reefs over the precipice towards functional collapse. This is a man made anomaly.

The Association describes coral reefs as among the most biologically diverse and economically important eco systems on the planet. These are natural systems that are vital to human societies. Coral reefs support fisheries; enhance coastal protection; aid the harvesting of new biochemical compounds; and drive sea based tourism. The decline of the coral reefs is a veritable tragedy for these Virgin Islands and islands that depend on sea based economics and tourism.

Already, anyone snorkeling or diving will notice less diverse reef communities, bleaching or whitening of reefs, and shrinking of coral masses. As the coral reefs disappear, so do the delights that are available to the discerning traveller and swimmer. Add to that conundrum is the fact that fish stocks are on the decline and some species of fish are threatened with extinction altogether.

The reefs that surround these islands and that sit on the sea bed in Virgin Islands bays and coastlines are the goose that lays the golden egg in VI ecotourism. As the reefs disappear, so does a major component of VI Tourism.  

OK. US President Barack Obama was absolutely right when on July 23, 2015, in announcing his Clean Power Plan for the USA the US Leader asserted that he was convinced that no challenge posed a greater threat to the future, and future generations, than climate change.

Small island jurisdictions such as these Lesser Antilles are at risk from rising sea levels and acidic waters, according to the experts. Add to the preceding, nations in arid regions such as Saharan Africa where increasing temperatures and devastating droughts are the result of climate change. 

Sir Ronald Sanders, the distinguished Caribbean Diplomat stated recently that President Obama’s efforts had given certain small islands “a chance to continue to exist, and for their peoples, a chance to remain in their homes.”

There can be no more important task of governance for a world leader than to protect the planet and its vulnerable peoples. Countries that are specifically at risk from global warming include Tuvalu and Kiribiti in the Pacific, Barbuda in the Caribbean, some of the islands of the Bahamas, and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean.

The US President’s assertions on Climate change were urgent. Obama stated that the present generation was the first to feel the impact of climate change, and the last that could do something about it. “We only get one home. We only get one planet. There is no plan b,” the President asserted.

So what does the President’s Clean Power Plan mean? If it is successfully implemented without political and legal opposition it will by 2030 reduce by 32% carbon pollution from power plants. But that is 32% less than it was a decade past, in 2005. That is huge.

Sanders writes that "it will encourage major polluters such as China to curtail their carbon emissions.” Sanders believes that the Clean Power Plan could, “nail down binding commitments and measurable targets, and contain global warming to such an extent that it should save small island states from catastrophic disaster, and countries such as Belize and Guyana where coasts are already mostly below the level of the sea.”

There will be great opposition to the US President’s Clean Power Plan: special interests, Republicans in Congress and the Senate, powerful business leaders, and academics simply opposed to the science of climate change.

In fact these forces are already mobilising to kill the plan. Legal challenges are expected from coal producing states and coal companies whose profits from fossil fuels will be hit. Sanders describes how Republican Party hopefuls assert loudly that, “the plan is bad for US business, worse for US strength in the global economy, and unsound in its science.” This disregard for the environment is short sighted and enormously selfish.

There is a cost to ending fossil fuel dependence. The IMF has put the annual cost of fixing the climate change time bomb at 2% of global GDP of 80 trillion USD. That is 1.6 trillion USD. One option to get this cash into Climate Change reversal is to end fossil fuel subsidies. This would benefit governments to the tune of 3.8% of global GDP, or 3 trillion USD.

President Barack Obama is correct. Climate change is an existential threat to humanity.

In the VI, the Non Profit Association, Association of Reef Keepers, AARK, launched in the 1990s, is doing valuable work, according to the BVI Beacon Editorial of August 13, 2015. “AARK is spearheading an effort to transplant coral fragments in two nurseries which is a territorial first;” its future plans “include efforts to limit runoff pollution that has damaged coral reefs.”

According to the Beacon editorial, Coral is rapidly dying throughout the world. A recent study “found that coral in the Caribbean Sea decreased from 35% to 16% between 1970 and 2012.” This is alarming.

Will Barack Obama’s Climate Change Reversal Plan save the coral reefs of the VI? Will a significant reduction in greenhouse gasses over the next decade return the world’s seas to the health of past decades? Will a global effort to reverse climate change save rapidly depleting fish stocks? Will the arctic and Antarctic ice masses return to their original formations before global warming became an issue? Will African drought and aridity be brought under control as a result of the attempt at Climate Change Reversal? These are difficult questions.

However, for the sake of the children and future generations political, social, academic, and business leaders must take their heads out the sand; recognise the gravity of the present situation, and act now to reverse climate change.

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