This story by Janine Mendes-Franco originally appeared on Global Voices on November 11, 2025.
The United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 30, will be held in Belém, Brazil, from November 10 to 21. This event will continue global discussions on the climate crisis. The Caribbean, consisting of small island developing states (SIDS), has been vocal about climate justice, particularly regarding the Loss and Damage agenda. As the conference approaches, the Caribbean is adopting a wait-and-see stance on the discussions.
Meetings of the Conference of the Parties (COP) began taking place annually in response to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the 1992 international treaty that preceded the 2015 Paris Agreement and its mission “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels” — or, as it’s referred to in the Caribbean, “1.5 to stay alive.”
Regional nations have become increasingly sceptical about the environmental disruption these COP meetings cause, for seemingly few tangible outcomes. On the heels of continued intense and disproportionate climate impacts being experienced by SIDS — which contribute the least to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions — and even with COP 28 delivering promises on Loss and Damage, the reality remains that weak frameworks leave sizeable gaps between support pledges and real-life action.
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It is a reality that may well have prompted the Jamaican government to take out a USD 150 million catastrophe bond as part of what the World Bank calls the island’s “well-developed disaster risk financing strategy.”
In the wake of Hurricane Melissa, AccuWeather estimates that the region will experience as much as USD 48 to 52 billion in damage. Its formula takes into account much more than insured losses, including long-term losses to the tourism sector, disruptions to business and agriculture, as well as costly infrastructural damage, evacuation, and cleanup expenses.
For island nations like Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, The Bahamas and Bermuda, all affected by the storm, the trauma is not simply in the moments of waiting for the storm to arrive, not knowing what it will bring. It is not even a matter of riding it out in uncertainty. The lingering damage sets in after the tempest has passed, and you take in the extent of the loss: people killed, homes destroyed, livelihoods reduced to nothing.
According to Theresa Rodriguez-Moodie, CEO of the Jamaica Environment Trust (JET), Jamaica was “reeling” from the intensity of the hurricane, telling Al Jazeera in a television interview, “These storms are becoming the norm, unfortunately, and it is fuelled by the climate crisis.”
When asked how she felt about the organisers of COP30 saying they have no plans to unveil any new measures at the conference in Belém, Rodriguez-Moodie replied, “What we need now is radical change. We need commitments. We need adaptation financing. We need Loss and Damage money […] now is not the time to pause.”
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The JET CEO went on to explain that preliminary damage estimates have been coming in at USD 67 billion for Jamaica alone — well over AccuWeather’s regional estimate. “We cannot afford to continuously pay these kind of big bills year after year,” Rodriguez-Moodie continued, “and have the big polluters go off Scotch-free.”
Many of the large GHG emitters are not even attending the COP30 conference, with the leaders of the United States, China, India and Russia noticeably absent, but Roadriguez-Moodie was not in the least bit phased: “Even when they were at the table, we really didn't have much movement, but the fact is that we cannot have these big emitters claim leadership while they're abandoning their responsibilities, because their profits were built on our pain.”
She argued that the absence of the Big 4 from COP30 “is not neutrality; it really is cowardice.” What SIDS are asking for, she explained, is not charity: “What we're demanding is accountability — and we are not waiting for permission to survive […] we’re asking for these pig polluters to pay what they owe [and] dismantle those systems that made them rich and left us vulnerable.”
The region “can’t continue to sit and wait,” she added, “but rather find creative ways to build its resilience and finance its Loss and Damage recovery.” [VP]
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