So, when we went to cover our next story today, we were hit with these abbreviations: UNFCCC RCC, followed by LECB, and then NAMAs, not to be outdone, of course by the J-CCCP. What does it all mean this alphabet soup of abbreviations? Well it's about making funding available for climate mitigation actions. WE found out more from Dr. Colin Young, the CEO in the Ministry of the Environment:
Dr. Colin Young, CEO Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, the Environment and Sustainable Development
"Specifically today we're talking about the capacity building and the training that is necessary for the Belizean private sector to 00:44 take advantage of the opportunity that exists in terms of financing for climate change."
Diane Wade, UNDP Environmental Analyst
"The project provides some funding in that regards to set what we consider the enabling environment for national action to take place."
Dr. Colin Young
"So the idea would be that some entity, National Bank or through international partners like UNDP can access concessionary financing from a donor and then off lends that to the Belizean private sector. The barrier from our point of view is the access to the financing. If you go to the bank and the bank is charging 10, 12, 14%, then of course it's not attractive, but if the bank is charging 2 - 3%, then all of a sudden it become a lot more attractive."
Dr. Colin Young
"What we're training them to do today is to look at how do we cost these and then how do we package it in such a way that we can access financing particularly concessionary financing to allow the private sector to do the changes that they need to do. When we use inefficient technology, and when we use lots of energy. We feel it in our pockets. For example if we are using incandescent bulbs still, and we are using inefficient air conditioners, there's nothing wrong in showing people that if they were to change their behavior they can result in significant savings."
"We know for a fact from my last job in the Ministry of Energy, that if we were to change our air conditioners, and our lights in our public buildings, then we can save about 40% of our energy costs. That's tremendous savings that can be passed unto the taxpayers."
"We have to have pilots that are functioning so people can see. It is one thing to have a theoretical debate, about this and another thing to have somebody see something happening, and the second is that this can result to savings to your pocket."
"So the idea...if I go to a Radisson Fort George and I say look, there's money available at extremely concessionary terms for you to go to solar water heating, to change out your lightings at a very affordable cost then the private sector will take that up."
Diane Wade, UNDP Environmental Analyst
"The discussions of climate change tend to put people into this situation where they feel it's something and they envision for 50 years from now, 100 years from now, but if you look right within our national environments and those things happening around us, the urgency is there now, when we look into the fact that we have villages in this country that we have to truck water to almost every year, that we have villages in this country that we are starting to see the salination of wells and if we take into consideration that a part of the reason that our papaya industry collapsed was a water issue."
The program is being implemented in 8 countries, which will share 12 million dollars.
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