As climate change sees a rise in extreme weather conditions, the Jamaican fishing village of Rocky Point faces intense storms and flooding. Mayor Winston Maragh is securing a more resilient future for his community by building better drainage and sea walls to protect against storm surges and floods. Interventions like these, better weather monitoring systems, and climate education across the islands will help protect towns and future-proof Jamaica’s tourism, fishing, and agriculture industries.
In partnership with the Climate Investment Funds and the World Bank, climate-vulnerable Jamaica is enacting measures to improve capacity for weather and water monitoring and data collection. This is important because local and national decisionmakers need reliable, up-to-date, and accurate information in order to improve preparedness and emergency response in times of crisis. In addition to bolstering overall capacity, the multimillion-dollar investment is supporting the installation of 35 weather stations across the country. They represent the Caribbean’s first real-time weather reporting network.