ABSTRACT
Over recent decades, there has been a growing acceptance of the evidence of global climate change and its unequivocal impacts due to anthropogenic causes (IPCC 2013). The undesirable consequences of climate change threaten all countries, but more so the economies and livelihoods of vulnerable developing regions and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) such as in the Caribbean. Overall, the projected climatic changes will have serious negative consequences for the Caribbean, with differentiated impacts being felt in the individual territories (Rhiney 2015; Barker 2012). Additionally, these external stressors of climate change exacerbate existing local social, economic, institutional and political vulnerabilities of island states, which have been characterized by colonial plantation systems, limited physical size, reliance on fragile biophysical environments, amongst other shared features – further compromising their ability to cope and/or adapt to the vagaries of the changing climate.
