The Decibel - Why this climate scientist is worried the Bahamas won’t exist in 50 years

Episode Date: November 11, 2022

At the global climate conference COP27, a major discussion is a loss and damage fund. The idea is that wealthier countries that contributed more to climate change would put money towards a fund that poorer countries could use to recover after climate-induced disasters like hurricanes, floods or droughts.But countries like the Bahamas are already feeling the impacts of climate change. Climate scientist and tropical storm expert Marjahn Finlayson tells us how climate change is affecting her home, and what responsibility countries like Canada have to help.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

Hi, I'm Mainika Raman-Welms, and you're listening to The Decibel. The Global Climate Conference, COP27, is in full swing this week. And a major focus is something called a loss and damage fund. The idea is that wealthier countries that have contributed more to climate change would pay into a fund. And that money would be given to poorer countries dealing with the brunt of climate change. Things like hurricanes, floods or droughts. Some countries, including Canada, have pledged money to mitigate loss and damage. But the amounts are nowhere close to the billions or potentially trillions

of dollars that might be needed. For the Bahamas and for other Caribbean regions and just small island developing states, our culture, our lifestyles, our homes are threatened because it's likely we're going to sink and lose them. Today, I'm talking to Marjan Finlayson. She's a climate researcher and tropical storm expert at the Cape Eleuthera Institute, which is part of the Island School in the Bahamas. She'll tell us how climate change is affecting the Bahamas and what responsibility other countries have to help. This is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail.

Marjan, thank you so much for joining me today. Glad to be here. Thank you so much for having me. So as we're talking to you, Tropical Storm Nicole has just hit the Bahamas and people have been evacuated. You said you had a shelter in place order right now. I can actually hear the wind a little bit in the background of your room there. It honestly, it feels kind of ironic given what we're going to be talking to you about today. Can I just ask, how are you doing there? It was a stressful couple of days preparing for it. It seemed like it just came out of nowhere. Started off as a subtropical storm. Now it's a tropical storm. Right now, for where I am settled, we're not really getting the brunt of it. The most northern

islands, Abaco, Grand Bahama, Bimini, they're experiencing more of the rain, wind, flooding, storm surge, all of that not so good stuff. But we got pretty lucky where I am in South Eleuthera. Okay. Can I just ask, I guess, like, what is it like for people in the Bahamas when storms hit? It's been a, like, change in perception of storms. When I was growing up, there was an idea of, like, how storms hit, right? So we were used to it. After Hurricane Dorian hit in 2019, when that hit, like, we had a bigger fear because of all the trauma that people went through all the damage all the things that went with hurricane dorian so because of that whenever

there's like the slightest storm now people are terrified so after dorian a lot of people's reactions to hurricanes has been heightened the fear is like more there um as in cop 27 now our prime minister uses it as an example of like climate change and what people are afraid of because we'd had, in Hurricane Dorian, we hadn't seen the level of storm surge that we've seen. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, like you say, Hurricane Dorian was incredibly destructive. It hit the Bahamas in 2019. At least 74 people died and there were billions of dollars worth of damage done to the country.

So you're talking about the difference kind of before Dorian and after Dorian. What do people do now to prepare for storms that was different than before? I think more people are willing to leave their homes than they were before. Whereas before that wasn't a thing. I remember Hurricane Irma hit in 2017. They had to pry people from like from the southern islands. They had to pry people from their homes. Mind you, that was a serious damaging storm too. But people were still like willing to stay. But they had to pry people from their homes before. Now people are just like, there's a storm, there's a chance of water, there's a chance of flooding, I'm out of here. How does this fear of storms, I guess,

sneak into everyday life, like the preparations of things that people do so one of the things people have now is like um life jackets i have one it's sitting in my closet right now my mother she'd go jackets yeah she got them on sale one time when she was in the u.s is a serious thing that people are because after dorian so many people were like in situations where they would be like rescued by jet skis or like people drowned so many people were, like, in situations where they would be, like, rescued by jet skis or, like, people drowned or, like, people had to, like, cling to trees and, like, stay at the highest possible heights. So a lot of people have, like, life jackets in the house to make sure that they're safe. And that's, like, become a very serious, like, hurricane preparation thing now. Wow.

So one of your areas of expertise is how storms are changing because of climate change. I guess, what can we learn from Dorian about how hurricanes are changing now? One of the things that we take note of is just the level of rain that you see. So rainfall is increasing globally. Like, that's just something that you can expect. But with Dorian, that was one of those storms that had a lot of rain that came with it. So we were already like, OK, there's a lot of rain that came with it so we were already like okay there's a lot of rain this is going to lead to flooding then there's a storm surge because of sea level rise and things like that sea level rise and just like construction

that happens like dredging and things like that that happened along the shores we expect to see more storm surge in places that haven't been low-lying areas before like today my mom actually sent me a video of west bay street in nassau where i'm from and the water from this particular storm so the storm surge from this storm hit new providence to the point where one of the main roads west bay street was flooded we'd never seen water to that extent with a tropical storm before. So that was something that was like, okay, this is becoming more serious. Mm-hmm, yeah, wow. I wanna get into the science just a little bit here. Can you tell me how climate change,

how is climate change making these storms different? One of the things that we're seeing is we're getting, again, more sea level rise means more storm surge. So that's already a scary thing that we're keeping in mind so the way that storms normally form is like after they kind of leave the coast of africa which is like most storms that hit the caribbean and other parts of the atlantic we expect them to come off the coast of africa to the main development region zone with the hot sea surface temperatures that we have it's giving storms more fuel and if you think of the water cycle the more heat that happens the more evaporation the more ev surface temperatures that we have, it's giving storms more fuel. And if you think of the water cycle, the more heat that happens, the more evaporation,

the more evaporation that leads to some condensation and, of course, precipitation. So you have like this convective cycle that continues on as this sea surface temperature increases. So August, September, October are like scariest months because we know that's when the seas are at their highest. So basically like essentially warmer oceans is what's actually causing the hurricanes to be stronger then, is that right? So we're seeing more warm oceans that are adding to the fuel of hurricanes. Another thing that we are looking at too is because one of the things that we do at my research lab is we focus on how the ocean affects hurricanes. So a lot of hurricane work is studied using atmospheric models and really how the atmosphere affects hurricanes. So a lot of hurricane work studied using like atmospheric models and

really how the atmosphere affects hurricanes. Humidity is also another thing to worry about because as humidity increases all over the earth, we can expect that that's going to add to the convection in hurricanes as well. The other thing that we started to look at is also sea surface salinity. So we work with a team. Salinity meaning the salt, essentially salt content? Yes. So the salt content at the top of the ocean, because the sea surface salinity actually acts as a barrier for evaporation. If there's a lot of sea surface salinity in an area, you're going to see less hurricane development. So one of the things that I'm concerned about in terms of global climate circulation is how some water deposits come from a river in Venezuela, how it comes into the Caribbean and affects the salinity temperatures throughout the season, things like that. But one

of the big theoretical questions is what happens when the freshwater melting ice caps melt and you see like there's going to be less salinity in the ocean that can affect big weather systems that can affect the tropics because what happens when we have fresh water more fresh water in the tops of our tropical regions then you're going to have less of a barrier for tropical storms to develop as well that's really interesting so you're saying like when there's an influx of freshwater, so if like, for example, ice caps are melting, we get more freshwater in there, it actually disrupts that kind of salty barrier on the top of the warm oceans. So more water can evaporate so the storm

can get bigger then. Yes. Wow. Scary stuff. Yeah. We've been talking a lot about storms here, but I guess what are some of the other ways that that you are seeing climate change impact the Bahamas? One of the most obvious things is we have like hotter temperatures and you know people always complain about the heat it's a very normal thing but now we're actually seeing like in the Caribbean region it's hotter in the summers the nights are hotter than they used to be. Summers are longer. Our rainy season isn't as rainy as it used to be. So in different parts of the country, different parts of the region, we expect that we'll see more drought. But one of the issues that we have is that people don't really have a full understanding of how large climate change could be in terms of how it can affect us. So one of the other things that we worry about is as the temperatures in the ocean you know the ocean's our best friend so as we're seeing the

temperatures of the ocean increase we're seeing that we're having more acidification which affects our coral reefs which affects our biodiversity which affects people who want to go for a dive and see the beautiful waters of the bahamas it also affects fishers like where I live it's a very rural area compared to like the more metropolitan parts of the country and a lot of people defend on fishing as like a backup thing to do or like that's a part of their lifestyles in general so when we're seeing like actually like our main delicacy like conch go out because we're seeing like the lips of conch are getting weaker or the shells are weaker because of the ocean acidifying then it comes into question like what does this mean for this

person's like lifestyle in terms of like selling kunks and like what does this mean for conservation efforts what is what is kunk so i don't know if you've ever watched the episode of spongebob with the magic conch shell right so inside the magic conch shell looks a little um it's a mollusk okay so we take it out and we make delicious foods but they make like a punk salad which is kind of like a ceviche or like we fry it and it's crack punk we are scared because they are endangered um but again you know trying to figure out best conservation efforts in the kind of lifetimes that we're living in. We'll be back in a minute.

It's amazing. I can hear the wind. Like, as we're talking, I can hear the wind, like, swirling around your house, it sounds like. It's pretty intense. It is. Wow. Yes. Well, I'm glad you're inside. I'm glad you're staying safe there. Let's go to some of the bigger picture things here. The Bahamas contributes just around 0.01% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This is according to Climate Watch, which is an

open source data platform that tracks these things. But the Bahamas is seeing some of the biggest impacts of climate change. I mean, this just objectively seems unfair. How does that feel to hear those numbers there? It's annoying. There's been a lot of language trying to put blame on who's at fault for climate change. I had a friend who's not my friend anymore, who would say something along the lines to me and like a lot of my other friends who were actually also from um developing nations so i had a friend from malaysia a friend from grenada another friend from the philippines and we'd be in a circle with this person who was fully british who would say to us well your countries aren't as developed as ours when it comes to climate change and you guys are at fault because you're not looking at the actual climate solutions that we already have.

So it would be. Now, mind you, he didn't know that we already had a plastic ban in our country. But he would say something along the lines is we don't use plastic bags and you guys still do. And that's so like trying to imply like it was like a primitive thing. And it was like in this moment, I kind of took some time to realize I really think that there are people who think that people who come from like the global south are primitive in terms of like the climate and greenhouse gases and things like that and there's no conversation about the responsibility of how colonialism has really affected our way of thinking in terms of industry and also in terms of like caring about the economics that

come with climate change right so we live in a society in our country and i'm sure in other places in the global south where people are more concerned about how they're going to make their next dollar than they are about this whole climate change issue and if you're from a place like england where you have some level of like social security, you can make time to care about these things. One of the main subjects at COP this year is about how wealthier countries with higher emissions can help countries feeling the brunt of climate change, in part through this loss and damage financing that's being discussed. What do you make of that? You know, I'm very happy that that is now a topic. So loss and damage was something that one of my colleagues, Dr. Adele Thomas, had been working on

for many years. That was something that she had been trying to bring to COP and has brought to IPCC reports in her time working on this stuff. I think that it is a good step in the right direction so with this loss and damage bill it's great because it's a step that you know that global southern countries are now getting a space where they can have like okay you guys are financially responsible for x y and z but what does financial responsibility actually mean i think that's one of the questions like even when it comes down to like thinking about what does that mean in terms of like, will you limit your actual usage of emissions? Or does that mean you're going to continue to emit and throw money at the problem? I guess I'm wondering about what what the stakes are here. Like what happens for the Bahamas if there isn't an agreement here, this loss and damage financial agreement?

So we had a conversation today, a couple of friends and I were looking at like the videos of how Tropical Storm Nicole was going over parts of Keys and Abaco. And they were just saying, my family home will not exist in the next 50 years. Wow. Because they expect it to sink.

And that's like a reality. A lot of people are actually coming to terms with that. Like, what are we going to do when this place sinks? What are we going to do when this is no longer a place that we can inhabit? Like, what will we do in these situations? It's too much of reality. So, but just to be clear, when we're saying sunk, we actually mean basically the ocean is rising and flooding then, right? Yes. So the ocean's rising, it's flooding. It's a big reality. And so what people are trying to do now, one of the efforts that we see a lot of conservationists trying to push is putting more mangroves down.

So having bigger mangrove forests to protect us against storm surge. Right now we've taken like a Western way of like building our houses on the ground. But before when my great grandmother existed, she used to build her house on stilts. So we're trying to go back to old adaptation ways that our ancestors used to use beforehand as well to see if that would make a difference.

But that's part of the conversation we're trying to have these days. Just before I let you go here, Marjan, I guess I want to ask you, what responsibility do you think countries like Canada have in helping countries like the Bahamas that are really on the front lines of climate change? I think, well, starting macro, macro, macro. So, of course, governments having conversations about loss and damage is huge. We need to actually have a way and a means to make sure that these countries like us, like the Bahamas and other states are able to like recover from the actual damages that could come from these huge climate storms and things like that. Another thing I think is like on an individual level for folks who are Canadian citizens who want to know like what they can do to help. Of course, after you see something that happens with a storm, like, you know, donate as much as possible, keep up with the news, but also make sure that we are a part of the conversation in all situations. Right. So I spoke to a couple of school age kids in England maybe a month ago and basically told them that, you know, your identity in this matters.

Right. So I'm sure there are a lot of Bahamian Canadians or Jamaican Canadians or a lot of these folks who live with these identities who can advocate for countries who are like people in these countries who are experiencing this damage now. now right they're also i mean thinking about one of the things that we're worried about in terms of thinking as well as like keeping in mind that migration is going to be a big thing that's going to happen right in our country because we're such a small archipelago but we have like a large geography we have people who are migrating internally but we expect that you know next 50 years ago when places are actually sinking that there have to be spaces that people from our countries are going to have to move to right so Canada being one of them like we're going to expect like there are going to be like a lot of migration a lot of I hate saying the word climate refugees but you know a lot of climate refugees who are going to be moving to different places based on like the internal like the damage and because of that damage we expect to see a loss

of culture as well as a loss of land so So what do we do to preserve those things? And is that a conversation that we're starting to have? Like, how are we going to preserve the culture of a land? Like, take a country like Tuvalu, all the way out in the Pacific. When the country, and not if, when they sink, what does that mean? And where will they go? And what does that mean for their culture? What does that mean for the, like, history and all of that?

And how do we preserve that? So that's another thing that, I mean, it's, I hope it's not a near future thing to worry about. But it is one of those things that we keep on our minds, right? Like, how do we are how are we accommodating the possibility that people will be moving to this country? And what do we do to preserve the culture that has been lost, or may possibly be lost? That's a really important thing to think about too. Marjane, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. And I hope the storm passes quickly without too much damage.

Yes, thank you. Appreciate it. That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Kasia Mihailovic is our senior producer, and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you next week.