When category 4 Hurricane Beryl hit the Caribbean last June, the three-island nation of Grenada bore the brunt of its wrath. At the time, the country’s prime minister, Dickon Mitchell, described the destruction as “almost Armageddon-like”. On the small island of Carriacou, it was estimated by officials that more than 90% of the buildings were damaged or destroyed. Agriculture and infrastructure for electricity and communication were almost completely wiped out.
The triple whammy of hurricanes, drought and coastal erosion makes the island one of the starkest examples of climate crisis challenges, said the Carriacou government official and environmentalist Davon Baker. “The impact of climate change has been pretty severe. In addition to hurricanes, we are losing a lot of beach space to rising sea levels, and we are having extreme and intense dry seasons, which affect our farming and ability to produce food,” he said.
Arley Gill, the head of the Grenada Reparations Commission, has pointed said there was an “inescapable” link between the pursuit of justice for enslavement and justice for climate change.
Gill argues that the Industrial Revolution is linked to both slavery and the climate crisis and that the Caribbean’s underdevelopment – itself a legacy of colonialism and enslavement – hampers the region’s ability to deal with the effects of the climate crisis.
Sitting in his office in Carriacou, Tevin Andrews, the minister for Carriacou and Petite Martinique, described how he lost a close friend to Beryl.
The island, he said, was surviving on hopes and prayers.
The lack of engagement and action by richer countries and former colonisers “sends a clear message that really and truly they don’t care about us”, he said.
“Their actions have us where we are. And we are going to continue to suffer. We are going to continue to get strong hurricanes. We are going to continue to lose our shorelines. Our islands will disappear.”