Aviation: Beryl serves as a reminder of the Caribbean's high exposure to extreme weather
Hurricane Beryl's status as the first major hurricane of the current season is a stark reminder that climate change is creating significant challenges for the aviation industry.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) recently stated that on 2-Jul-2024 Beryl was the earliest Category 5 hurricane observed in the Atlantic on record, and only the second in that category to occur in July after Emily in 2005.
The agency said that Beryl had "brought catastrophic winds and life-threatening storm surge to the southern Windward Islands as it tracked into the Caribbean Sea, where it continued to gain strength".
Many Caribbean markets have outsized exposure to those increasingly strong weather events driven by climate change, and working to combat the effects will be a challenge for the region's aviation sector.
- Hurricane Beryl was a reminder that the Caribbean had outsized exposure to extreme weather events.
- The World Bank has cited Grenada, Saint Lucia and Haiti’s risk, and to those events and the economic challenges that can ensue.
- The organisation has offered suggestions for the Caribbean to withstand increasingly severe weather occurrences.
- Implementing the recommendations is a formidable task.
Hurricane Beryl is a reminder of the Caribbean's vulnerability to extreme weather
Beryl's intensity so early in the season follows several weather events that the Caribbean has faced during the past several years.
A report titled 'Enhancing Air Transport Resilience in The Caribbean' released by the Latin America and the Caribbean Transport Unit in 2023 at The World Bank stated that Tropical Storm Erika in 2015 had crippled Dominica's main airport with severe flooding.
During Sep-2017 Hurricanes Irma and Maria, categories 5 and 4, respectively, wreaked havoc across the Caribbean, inflicting over USD100 million in damage to Princess Juliana International airport on the island of Sint Maarten.
Maria also devastated the US territory of Puerto Rico: "With winds of up to 175mph, it was the largest hurricane to have hit Puerto Rico since 1928," said the US National Institutes of Health. The storm was also the costliest in the island's history, causing estimated damage of USD100 million.
While Puerto Rico proved resilient in its recovery, the storms of the recent past that have swept the Caribbean show the tolls that extreme weather can take on a country or region's economy.
The World Bank Highlights Grenada, Saint Lucia and Haiti's exposure to severe weather
The World Bank Report focused on Grenada, which happened to be squarely in the path of Beryl, Saint Lucia and Haiti. It noted that the most critical factor influencing Grenada's economic outlook was its "vulnerability to hydrometeorological and geological hazards and the impacts of climate change…"
Estimated annual economic loss due to natural disasters for Grenada was 3% per unit per Gross Domestic Product between 2000 and 2019.
Citing the European Network on Debt and Development, the World Bank's report noted that the cumulative damage resulting from storms that have hit Grenada over the past few decades "amounted to 157% of the GDP between 1980 and 2015, effectively offsetting all the economic growth achieved during the same period".
Saint Lucia, the report concluded, also faced a high exposure to the same weather events as Grenada.
"Saint Lucia is among the top high-risk countries in the world, ranking 18th globally in terms of the vulnerability of its GDP to weather-related losses."
In addition to Haiti's civil unrest, the 2010 earthquake, Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and the earthquake that occurred in Aug-2021, were extreme weather events that have recently devastated the country, the report noted.
Additionally, for Haiti, "climate change is contributing to greater hurricane intensity and frequency; by 2050, hurricane wind intensities are likely to increase by 5 to 10 percent and precipitation is likely to increase by 25 percent, leading to higher and more severe storm surges," the report noted.
Suggestions are offered to help the region withstand extreme weather events....
The report made suggestions for each of those regions and for the Caribbean as a whole, including urgent and resilient investments in infrastructure for improved emergency management and recovery, optimising the financial performance of the aviation sector, and creating a high performance airport management organisation,
Other recommendations include developing a comprehensive plan in coordination with the safety regulators, the 'Eastern Caribbean Civil Aviation Authority' (ECCAA) for Grenada and Saint Lucia and 'Office National de l'Aviation Civile' (OFNAC) for Haiti.
"This will help address safety concerns identified through the ICAO, US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and ECCAA/national audit programmes, as well as achieve full aerodrome certification for international airports," the reported stated.
Other suggestions included collaboration with Caribbean Community CARICOM and other regional institutions to promote economic liberalisation of air services, and preparation and implementation of a 'Resilience Enhancement Implementation Plan' (REIP).
...but implementation is rife with significant challenges
All of those suggestions are logical, but in many ways the complexities and nuances of aviation in the Caribbean create challenges in implementing the recommendations.
There's little coordination among the nations comprising the Caribbean region, and many countries face challenges in achieving sustainable economic growth. The World Bank estimated in 2022 that Gross National Income per capita varies in the region from USD800 to USD30,000.
As the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic has continued, levels of debt to GDP have started to trend down for most countries, The World Bank stated.
However, "rising price levels and a challenging global environment pose significant challenges as countries work to strengthen fiscal balances, revitalise growth and build resilience against natural disasters and help cope with climate change".
The Caribbean's challenges from extreme weather won't diminish as climate change intensifies
Capacity in the Caribbean remains above pre-crisis levels, and demand from the Americas to the region remains robust, despite some specific pockets of excess capacity.
Caribbean: weekly available seat kilometres from 2019 to mid-2024
But the region's vulnerability to climate change cannot be denied, and unfortunately the Caribbean is likely to continue battling extreme weather events with a higher level of frequency.