News stories by Zadie Neufville, page 2

NEGRIL, Jamaica, Aug 24 (IPS) - Ceylon Clayton is trying to revive a sea moss growing project he and friends started a few years ago to supplement their dwindling earnings as fishermen.

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Aug 07 (IPS) - Since 2013, Jamaica's Met Office has been using its Climate Predictability Tool (CPT) to forecast ‘below average' rainfall or drought across the island. The tool has allowed this northern Caribbean island to accurately predict several dry periods and droughts, including its most destructive episode in 2014 when an estimated one billion dollars in agricultural losses were incurred due to crop failures and wild fires caused by the exceptionally dry conditions.

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Apr 28 (IPS) - Caribbean scientists say fishermen are already seeing the effects of climate change, so for a dozen or so years they've been designing systems and strategies to reduce the impacts on the industry.

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Apr 18 (IPS) - There were surprised gasps when University of the West Indies (UWI) Professor John Agard told journalists at an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meeting in late November 2016 that mosquitoes were not only living longer, but were "breeding in septic tanks underground".

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Mar 11 (IPS) - On Nov. 30 last year, a new high-performance ‘Super Computer' was installed at the University of the West Indies (UWI) during climate change week. Dubbed SPARKS - short for the Scientific Platform for Applied Research and Knowledge Sharing - the computer is already churning out the ‘big data' Caribbean small island states (SIDS) need to accurately forecast and mitigate the effects of climate change on the region.

KINGSTON, Jan 18 (IPS) - By year's end, Jamaica will add 115 mega watts (MW) of renewable capacity to the power grid, in its quest to reduce energy costs and diversify the energy mix in electricity generation to 30 per cent by 2030.

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Jan 13 (IPS) - On a very dry November 2013, Jamaica's Meteorological Service made its first official drought forecast when the newly developed Climate Predictability Tool (CPT) was used to predict a high probability of below average rainfall in the coming three months.

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Nov 23 (IPS) - Negotiators from the 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) are intent on striking a deal to keep the global temperature rise at 1.5 degrees of pre-industrial levels, but many fear that a 10-year-old agreement to buy cheap petroleum from Venezuela puts their discussions in jeopardy.

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Nov 18 (IPS) - This past summer Jamaicans sweltered through their third consecutive year of reduced rainfall resulting in wild fires, a crop-killing drought and daily water cuts.

KINGSTON, Jul 13 (IPS) - With time running out for Jamaica's coral reefs, local marine scientists are taking things into their own hands, rebuilding the island's reefs and coastal defences one tiny fragment at a time - a step authorities say is critical to the country's climate change and disaster mitigation plans.