Several important issues such as climate change will be discussed when the ninth meeting of the OECS Council of Ministers on Environmental Sustainability convenes here in St. Vincent and the Grenadines from May 31st to June 2nd, 2022.
Speaking with the API, Minister of Tourism and Sustainable Development Hon. Carlos James said it is important to have conversations about environmental sustainability and protecting the environment especially with the impact of climate change.
The Sustainable Development Minister said ‘I can speak to the importance of… for example expanding our cruise tourism and dealing with the issue of waste and how do we deal with waste both onshore and off shore, we talk about the issue of climate change and our vulnerabilities.
Minister James said ‘the environmental sustainability component ties in to how we react to our climate, our soil to… ridge to reef, how we deal with our waste disposal, our water management, desertification, biodiversity it’s a broad spectrum of sub groupings which captures within the whole element of environmental sustainability”.
The Chair of the Council of Ministers is rotated on an annual basis in the alphabetical order of the member states and this year St. Vincent and the Grenadines has assumed the role as chair and host of the 9th Meeting of the Council of Ministers: Environmental Sustainability.
There will be three (3) days of meetings. First of which will be an opening ceremony and a meeting of technical officers, day two (2) will see the Ministers of Environmental Sustainability official meeting and on day three (3) there will be a tour along the leeward