Every now and then we get some resounding, powerful, impossible-to-ignore reminder of the enormous existential risks that climate change represents for the archipelago of Puerto Rico.
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It could be a hurricane, a catastrophic flash flood, the disappearance of sand on a beach, a United Nations (UN) report, or, just a few days ago, a study by local experts highlighting the enormous cost of standing idly by in the face of this serious threat.
The Committee of Experts and Advisors on Climate Change (CEACC), a non-governmental organization composed of the most prominent experts on this issue in Puerto Rico, released a study estimating that our economy will suffer a devastating impact of $379 billion by 2050 if no action is taken. And so far, almost nothing has been done to address the countless consequences that the rise in global temperatures will have on a tropical country like ours.
The study, which was carried out at a cost of $250,000 by the firm Estudios Técnicos, details enormous costs in all the most important sectors of the economy, except construction, which will remain buoyant because it will be necessary to rebuild everything that the rising sea level and the stronger and more frequent atmospheric phenomena destroy. The outlook is, frankly, frightening.
It should not be necessary to emphasize how vital, how indispensable, how urgent it is for our authorities to address this issue with the tremendous urgency it deserves. But unfortunately, we have seen time go by without those who govern, nor the majority of those who aspire to do so next year, showing that they understand all that is at stake in this issue.
To go no further, just in the last session of the quadrennium, the Legislature failed to act on a CEACC report, which recommended hundreds of measures to address this threat, at a fraction of the cost of doing nothing. We believe that a first step to finally begin to demonstrate willingness to address this serious problem would be for Governor Pedro Pierluisi to call an extraordinary session of the Legislature to discuss, approve and act on the report.
We also urge the four gubernatorial candidates to commit to this report, to learn about the problem and the responses to it, and to commit to the steps necessary to finally begin to address it. So far, Juan Dalmau, candidate of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) in alliance with the Citizen Victory Movement, is the only one who has spoken in some detail about this situation.
Climate change is an alarming reality that will not disappear simply because we ignore it. In the pursuit of small, immediate, and simple matters, too many of our leaders have failed to give it the attention it demands. Small, tropical nations like Puerto Rico are not the primary culprits behind the pollutants emitted by large industrial countries. But paradoxically, we will be among the main victims of this phenomenon, facing hurricanes, rising sea levels, coastal erosion, droughts, and heat waves, among other extreme events.
The problem continues to worsen by leaps and bounds, but we still have time to prepare our infrastructure, our homes, our communities, our cities, our way of life, to face this existential risk. Today is not too late, but very soon it will be.
We can no longer wait. The time to act is now.
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This content was translated from Spanish to English using artificial intelligence and was reviewed by an editor before being published.
