Today, the Antigua and Barbuda Embassy in Washington, D.C. will host a one-day high-level dialogue on climate policy and other important issues in the Western Hemisphere.

The meeting will take place at the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS) and will bring together diplomats from several Caribbean and Latin American states, as well as an official from the US State Department.

The event aims to discuss climate change and other pressing issues affecting the region.

Sir Ronald Sanders, Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the US and the Organization of American States, and Iván Rebolledo, Chairman of the Global Americans Board, will both give opening remarks.

The Barbadian Ambassador, Noel Anderson Lynch, will present the Bridgetown Initiative, a policy proposal launched by the government of Barbados in July 2022 to reform and reshape the world’s financial institutions to fund climate action.

Costa Rica’s Ambassador, Catalina Crespo-Sancho, will give a presentation on the third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC), which will be held in June 2025 and co-chaired by the governments of France and Costa Rica.

The conference aims to promote sustainable ocean management and improve marine governance. A preparatory stakeholder meeting will take place in Costa Rica in June 2024.

The Bahamas Ambassador, Wendall K. Jones, will discuss the preparations for the IV Inter-American Meeting of Ministers and High-Level Authorities on Sustainable Development 2, which will be held on October 3rd and 4th, 2023, in The Bahamas.

The meeting will focus on the threat of climate change and the need for collective hemispheric climate action.

Sir Ronald will also inform his colleagues on the matter of climate change and its disruptions to the lives and economies of small island states.

He will share about the case of Small Island States and the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), which Antigua and Barbuda and Tuvalu presented. On September 12, 2023, ITLOS will hear the groundbreaking case on the legal responsibility of States for carbon emissions, marine pollution, rising sea levels, and the resulting damage inflicted on other States.

Other presentations will come from the Global Americans Climate Change in the Caribbean Program and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Caribbean Affairs and Haiti, Barbara Feinstein.

The event will end with an open discussion among participants.