Barbados fights Climate Change to preserve its past, present and future

Written in association with the Reporting the Climate Crisis in Barbados study abroad course at Washington and Lee university. Read this article and see more projects here. I wrote the introduction and the fishing section of this story and contributed reporting throughout.

By Shay Bowman, Aiden Kelsey, Cami Knott and Turi Trainor

Adapting to climate change is no longer optional in Barbados—it is a matter of survival.

The island has a population of less than 300,000 and a Gross Domestic Product of about $6.72 billion USD. It also contributes a tiny share of global greenhouse gas emissions.

But the island nation faces rising seas, water scarcity, stronger hurricanes and disappearing fish stocks.

“You are the problem,” said Elizabeth Thompson, Barbados’ ambassador to the United Nations from 2018 to 2021. “Your lifestyle is my problem.”

She made the comments in an interview with Washington and Lee University students who were in Barbados in May 2025 to study the ravages of climate change on the island and the nation’s responses to it. She said she wasn’t blaming the students personally but rather the parts of the world from which they came.

“You believe that you have a right to your level of development and to pollute as much as you wish even if it impacts me adversely,” said Thompson, who is now Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary for climate change.

And the damage is getting worse. Prime Minister Mia Mottley is demanding that the world pay attention.

Mottley, the first female prime minister of Barbados, first gained international attention in September 2019 when she addressed the 74th session of the U.N. General Assembly. But her speech at the 2021 U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow solidified her role as a leading voice for vulnerable nations.

“We do not want that dreaded death sentence,” she said. “And we have come here today to say, ‘try harder, try harder,’ because our people, the climate army, the world, the planet needs our action now. Not next year. Not in the next decade.”

The consequences of climate change are devastating to a country like Barbados–and expensive. Converting to renewable energy, building storm-resistant infrastructure and protecting citizens from extreme heat come with a high price tag.

Mottley's message hasn’t changed: Countries like Barbados cannot adapt without help. But the international financing system was not built for small, climate-vulnerable nations.

She is pushing to change that.

In July 2022, Mottley convened leaders from across the Global South in Bridgetown to launch the Bridgetown Initiative, a proposal to reform the global financial system so developing nations can access climate financing at affordable rates.

“It is not an exaggeration to say that the level of financing which is made available, to which countries will have access and on what terms, are issues of survival for millions of people and for the well-being of our planet,” according to the initiative.

Mottley continued that call at the 2023 Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin.

“The burden of whether we can keep global temperatures from rising much beyond the 1.5 degrees of warming cannot fall on the poorest countries, those who are least responsible for the stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” she said. “If countries cannot access the finance they need at rates they can afford, the world will lose the battle.”

Dr. Leonard Nurse, a retired environmental studies professor at the University of West Indies at Cave Hill, said every aspect of life in Barbados is being impacted by climate change.

The key areas of concern are:

Fishing: Damage from more intensive storms and an invasive seaweed called sargassum are making it harder to catch fish.

Energy: Barbados is pursuing cleaner sources of power by embracing solar to achieve its goal of 100% renewable energy.

Agriculture: Extreme heat is killing more and more livestock, and hurricanes and flooding are devastating to crops.

Water: Barbados' uniquely pure and mineral-rich supply of groundwater is threatened because of changing weather patterns.
Tourism: Visitors help and hurt the island by straining the country’s water, food and power resources.
Public health: Storms and droughts can be unhealthy for everyone, but the elderly are especially vulnerable.
Fishing
More than most, Barbadian fisherfolk feel the impact of a warming climate because the island is experiencing more intense, damaging storms.
Hurricane Beryl delivered a glancing blow to Barbados in late June to early July 2024 but still damaged nearly three-quarters of the island’s fishing vessels, said Nurse, who was part of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change when it shared the 2007 Nobel Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore for creating "an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activity and global warming."
Beryl was the earliest-forming Category 5 storm on record, according to the U.S. National Weather Service.
Warmer ocean temperatures, driven by human-caused climate change, are making hurricanes across the Atlantic more severe, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. The Environmental Defense Fund is a nonprofit organization that combines scientific research, policy analysis and communications to address climate and environmental challenges globally.
Hurricane Beryl passed about 150 kilometers off the island’s southern coast, but it caused extensive damage to the Bridgetown Port, the cruise ship terminal, the Fisheries Marina and its breakwater.
In some areas of Barbados, fisherfolk with large boats could not haul them ashore because Beryl had washed away key beach access points, Nurse said. In all, 240 vessels were damaged or destroyed, according to the World Bank.
To help fisherfolk recover, the government offered up to $2,000 BBD per month in benefits. Some fisherfolk, who are predominantly men, received payments for three months.
But vendors, mostly women who clean and sell the fish, received a one-time payment of $1,500 BBD.
The difference in compensation frustrated many of the female vendors.
“The vendors were very vocal because they were kind of expecting almost the same amount of money as the boat owners and the captains and crew that were directly impacted,” said Shelly-Ann Cox, chief fisheries officer. “They wanted a business interruption benefit, but they never stopped working.”
Cox said fisherfolk and vendors support much of the island’s coastal economy. But she said their contributions are often overlooked or misunderstood.

People barter with a Pile Bay fisherman who has just returned to shore with his catch.

“People never view fishers high on the pedestal because they don’t understand the technicalities to fishing and the research side,” she said.

Cox said fewer young Barbadians are entering the fishing industry. Few women also go out to sea to fish. Pile Bay had a couple women who had boats and fished. But they passed away in recent years.

“Discussions have started about if we need to encourage people to come in to work in the fisheries sector from other countries to be able to adequately sustain it,” Cox said.

The government’s official numbers on the industry also do not reflect its full scale, Cox said. Fishing makes up just 0.7% of Barbados’ GDP, she said.

The percentage is based only on landings–the amount of fish brought to shore and sold–and the average market price.

The GDP calculation does not include the value of boats, the work of mechanics, vendors, processors or others who keep the industry running, Cox said. She said government agencies are now working on new methods to better capture the industry’s total contribution to the nation’s economy.

Climate-related shifts in ocean habitats may also be making it harder to catch fish.

Coral reefs provide shelter and feeding grounds for a variety of marine species. But the reefs are under increasing stress.

Rising ocean temperatures in the Caribbean have triggered more frequent bleaching events, in which corals expel the algae they depend on and become more vulnerable to disease, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

Corals can only survive within a narrow temperature range of 23 to 29 degrees Celsius (73.4 to 84.2 degrees Fahrenheit). They expel the algae they rely on for food and color when water stays too warm for too long. Without the algae, corals bleach, become more vulnerable to disease and may eventually die.

Ocean acidification poses another threat to reefs. Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reduces the minerals that corals need to build their skeletons, leaving reefs more fragile over time, according to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

“People never view fishers high on the pedestal because they don't understand the technicalities to fishing and the research side," Cox said

Kevin Chapman, public relations officer of the Pile Bay Fisherfolk Organization, said the environmental shifts have forced fisherfolk to change where they hunt for fish.

“If the reefs are dying and the fish are not attracted to those areas, you can't get them,” he said.

In Barbados, flying fish, which can glide across the water with their fins, is important economically. But it is also central to the Barbadian identity. Flying fish and cou-cou is the national dish.

“Flying fish has been an important delicacy and an important part of the local diet for eons,” Nurse said.

Flying fish don’t live in reefs, but they are disappearing from Barbadian waters. Why is subject to debate. Is it warming ocean temperatures? Is it sargassum? Or is there something else going on?

But fisherfolk say there are fewer flying fish in the waters surrounding the island.

Chapman said flying fish are migrating farther south because of warming ocean conditions caused by climate change.

The change in migratory patterns has added pressure to a long-standing maritime conflict between Barbados and Trinidad.

Trinidadian authorities claim Barbadian fisherfolk enter their territory illegally to catch flying fish. But Barbadians deny the accusation, insisting they only operate within their own national waters, Ambassador Thompson said.

She said the tensions date back to 1994, but both governments are now negotiating a new treaty.

For many fisherfolk, the cost of pursuing fish in distant waters is already too high, Chapman said.

“It wouldn't be economically viable for fishermen to go that far distance to catch fish. And that's linked to climate change,” he said.

Sargassum is also changing the way fisherfolk work along the coast.

Sargassum covers the beach at Bathsheba on the island's East Coast.

Massive influxes of sargassum now blanket the coastline, snaring nets and damaging boat engines. The floating thick brown seaweed compromises water quality near reefs, said Leo Brewster, director of Barbados’ Coastal Zone Management Unit.

“The longer it sits on those reef systems or within the near shore, the faster the deterioration of the water,” he said.

Brewster said sargassum that reaches Barbados originates in the south Atlantic Ocean. Fisherfolk have reported massive mats–some spanning four miles wide and 16 miles long–that clog boat engines and bring fishing trips to a halt.

“If you get caught up in it, you really and truly can't move,” he said. “You have to pull your way through to get out.”

Fisherfolk searched for smaller mats when sargassum began appearing on the island in 2011. They used the sargassum to catch mahi-mahi and lionfish, which tend to follow flying fish that shelter beneath the seaweed. The Barbadians call mahi-mahi dolphinfish. But it’s not dolphin, which is a mammal.

But Brewster said the mats have grown too large to fish around, making it harder to spot and catch flying fish and the larger fish that follow them.

The seaweed’s growth is tied in part to warming oceans, said Nurse, the retired UWI professor.

If current warming trends continue, some climate scientists project that by 2050, sargassum could spread farther north, arrive earlier in the year and persist later into the fall.

Sargassum levels in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea reached a new record in April 2025, surpassing the previous all-time high set in June 2022, according to the University of South Florida’s Optical Oceanography Lab.

Barbados has faced a sargassum crisis before. In 2018, Prime Minister Mottley declared a national emergency after massive blooms inundated the island’s shores. That summer, the sargassum belt stretched across the Atlantic and contained more than 20 million metric tons of seaweed, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Now, Cox said, fisherfolk need to adjust where they fish.

“With the sargassum, the guys have to adapt and have programs to constantly improve the adaptive capacity of the fisherfolk themselves in terms of inspiring them to be innovators and to be open to change,” she said.

Nurse said researchers are exploring new ways to use sargassum, such as turning it into fertilizer or fuel.

The University of the West Indies at Cave Hill is exploring how it might be converted to biogas to power small engines.

Still, Cox said, the efforts are limited.

“There are proposals for seeing it as an opportunity,” she said. “Some innovators have started the production of fertilizers. But they're using very small quantities.”

With most sargassum projects still in early stages, fisherfolk are left to adapt day by day, with no long-term solution yet in place.

Energy

In 2019, the prime minister set a goal for Barbados to reach 100% renewable energy by 2030. But the timeline has been adjusted to 2035 because Barbados is unlikely to accomplish the goal in the next five years.

The Barbados National Energy Policy outlines how the country plans to eliminate fossil fuel consumption on the island by diversifying and increasing the renewable energy sources available.

Solar is at the forefront of renewable energy production.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) panels are affixed to the tops of many businesses and homes throughout the island. Solar panels convert sunlight into heat. PV panels convert sunlight into electricity.

In Barbados, solar water heaters are also abundant. According to the energy policy document, Barbados is one of the leading countries for solar water heaters per capita in the world. Nurse said Barbados has either the third or fourth highest penetration rate for solar water heating in the world.

The tanks, which usually sit on top of houses, store water that is heated by the sun's energy. Solar water heaters are a source of pride for the country, Nurse said.

“Barbados was one of the pioneers in developing solar water heaters,” he said. “When you say hot water in Barbados, nobody thinks of electric or gas heating anymore.”

Climate change has brought hotter temperatures to an already hot climate–and increased demand for air conditioning. That means people want and use more electricity, said Johann Greaves, the director of operations at Barbados Light & Power, a private company that is the sole supplier of electricity on the 166-square-mile island.

“Everybody looks at us to ensure they have a good reliable supply,” he said. “The overall consumption per customer has increased. And that is across all classes.”

BL&P delivered over 1,000 gigawatts–1 million megawatts–to customers across the island in 2024, a 7% increase from 2023.

In 2016, BL&P launched a 10-megawatt solar PV farm in St. Lucy, the largest in the eastern Caribbean.

The farm spreads over 42 acres and has 44,496 panels. It also features a “vegetation management unit,” also known as sheep.

BL&P contracts with a local farmer who supplies about 700 Barbados Blackbelly sheep to keep the grass around the PV panels from growing too high. “They're effectively lawnmowers,” Greaves said.

In return, the farmer receives free water and electricity, said Gail Inniss, an electrical maintenance engineer who runs the BL&P solar farm.

Inniss said BL&P is focused on increasing renewable energy production. But she said fossil fuels are still necessary to maintain a consistent electricity supply. When the weather changes, it interrupts the flow of energy generated by solar.

“All of a sudden the rain is falling, and we have to find the power to supply the country,” Inniss said. “If I have everything on renewables, and I have nothing to stabilize it, and a cloud comes over and everything stops, it can have cascade effects."

When that happens, Inniss said, the plant has a backup, a 33-megawatt diesel generation plant called the “Clean Energy Bridge.” It also helps stabilize the country’s electricity supply during the transition to 100% renewable energy. But it will also serve as a source of energy when the country meets the goal, Inniss said.

In 2022, 28.2% of the energy on the island was renewable, according to the Barbados Energy Report Card prepared by the Caribbean Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. Fossil fuels, mainly heavy fuel oil, kerosene, diesel and aviation fuel, make up the rest of the energy output.

Extreme storms and hurricanes can stop PV energy production. But the panels are built to withstand a low Category 5 hurricane.

A Category 5 is the most severe type of hurricane, with wind speeds of at least 157 mph, according to the Associated Press Stylebook Hurricane Tropical Guide.

Hurricane Beryl put Barbados' infrastructure to the test last July, and it passed. The island’s energy sector suffered minimal damage.

Greaves credits good design. The PV panels are supported by two legs instead of one, and the company uses power lines that detach from poles during strong winds, he said.

“If the line detaches from the pole, we save a lot of poles and then when the storm passes, we can reattach them,” said Charles Harris, senior manager of business solutions at BL&P.

Out of 77,000 poles, only 10 fell down during Hurricane Beryl, Greaves said. The entire island got power back after three days. The panels at the St. Lucy farm also were unharmed.

Harris said about 3,500 customers on the island currently sell energy to BL&P generated by the PV panels atop their homes. The power company then sells energy back to them in the evenings when the sun goes down.

Many more people have applied to sell energy that their PV panels generate to BL&P, Harris said. But the utility company lacks the capacity to connect them to the grid because it needs more storage.

Harris said batteries store the excess energy produced during peak hours so that when the sun sets or weather conditions fluctuate, there is still a consistent renewable power supply.

BL&P needs at least 200 megawatts of batteries to create enough storage necessary for the island to be supplied by 100% renewable energy. Right now the utility has only 5 megawatts of battery storage.

In 2024, BL&P applied for 90 megawatts of batteries through a government program called the Clean Energy Transition Plan. The program incentivizes BL&P to install renewable energy by allowing the company to recover the costs of clean energy investment from the government.

The Fair Trading Commission, Barbados’ utility regulator, only approved 15 megawatts. And the main reason is the price tag. It would cost $800 million BBD to pay for the 90 megawatts, Greaves said.

“We have a lot of people who want to put it up,” he said. “But the capacity is a challenge where we cannot allow for any more solar without battery right now.”

Customers who want to install solar PV panels that connect to the island’s energy grid can still do so–only if they supply the battery. For every watt of electricity the panels generate, the customer must also provide the equivalent in battery storage.

But the batteries are expensive. In the interim, Barbados must cope with the heat.

“Over the last two years, persons have been consuming more energy, and it all comes back to climate change,” Greaves said. “The atmosphere is hotter, the days are hotter.”

Agriculture

Global warming and severe weather events have led to major declines in agricultural production in Barbados.

Paul Davis, who owns Walkers Dairy in St. George, said rising temperatures have made the difficult business of farming even harder.

“The excess heat is a big factor because cows do not sweat like humans,” he said. “Their main way of cooling is through respiration.”

Cows lower their body temperatures by exhaling hot, wet air and inhaling cool, dry air. High levels of heat and humidity interfere with the cycle.

“They can’t do that heat exchange,” he said. “And that’s when the milk production gets affected.”

Agriculture accounts for about 1.6% of the Barbadian GDP per capita, according to the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute. About 10% of the island's population works in farming.

Paul Davis says his cows produce more milk because he's spent money to help them cope with the heat.

Barbados was colonized by the British in 1627 and quickly became a center for the transatlantic slave trade. The island’s economy revolved around sugar cane, which was primarily cultivated and harvested by enslaved Africans. By the 18th century, Barbados was one of the wealthiest British colonies, built almost entirely by its enslaved population. Slavery was abolished in 1834.

Barbados gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1966 and remained a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy with Queen Elizabeth II as head of state until 2021, when it became a republic.

Imperialism shaped the development of agriculture in Barbados. The island's British colonizers prized it as a source of sugar and oversaw the mass production of sugar cane beginning in the 1640s, according to the UNESCO World Heritage Convention.

“From 1643 until very recent times, sugar and rum production has been the mainstay of the Barbadian economy,” according to a report from the convention. “The requirements for the production and sale of sugar . . . dictated the social and political development of the island.”

Barbados was responsible for 65% of Caribbean sugar exports from the 1650s through the 1670s, according to "A History of Barbados," which was written by historian Hilary Beckles. Barbados remained the Caribbean's largest sugar producer until the turn of the century.

The island's share of Caribbean sugar exports declined in the 1700s, according to Beckles’ book. But the raw amount of sugar exported continued to increase.

Sugar cane production peaked in 1967 at about 1.9 million tons, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. By 2023, sugar cane production had dwindled to only about 73,000 tons, representing a 96% decrease in 56 years.

Michael James, acting chief agricultural officer, said Barbados grows root vegetables like sweet potato, yam and cassava. The island also grows fruit trees such as avocado, plantain, banana and a fig relative known as breadfruit.

Barney Callender, Barbados’ deputy chief agricultural officer, said chickens are the island's main source of protein.

James said food security–or having enough food for everyone in Barbados–isn't enough. Barbados also needs to achieve greater food sovereignty.

“Food sovereignty is the ability to eat what you produce,” he said. “Grow what you eat. Eat what you grow.”

But James said Barbados relies too much on foreign imports, especially from the U.S., to feed its population. The island’s dependency on other countries became a problem during the COVID-19 pandemic when it became difficult to import the food its people needed.

Climate change makes the goal of food sovereignty even harder to reach, James said.

That’s because global warming is killing off livestock. Callender said the poultry industry has been hit the hardest by rising temperatures.

“At one point in time … there was no chicken,” he said. “What we expected to receive over a period of time didn’t materialize because the mortality was pretty high.”

Callender estimated that chicken production was down by about 45% last year. The milk industry experienced about a 32% decline.

Farmers need to invest in quality housing for their livestock to cope with rising temperatures, Callender said. He said many barns have roofs that are too low, which prevents air from circulating.

Davis said he built his barn in 2006 with cooling in mind. “The roof is deliberate,” he said. “The space at the top allows the hot air to get up through the top.”

“At one point in time ... there was no chicken," Callender said. “What we expected to receive over a period of time didn't materialize because the mortality was pretty high."

He said he runs fans between eight in the morning and three in the afternoon. Walkers Dairy also uses a sprinkler system to cool down its cows. “If these fans and sprinklers don’t function for a day, I could easily lose a hundred kilos of milk production,” he said.

But Callender said some smaller, less established farms can't afford cooling systems.

Davis said his farm reaps the benefits of heat mitigation efforts. “This is the only farm that has this climate system in place,” he said. “Without it, revenue goes down and stress on the animals go up.”

James said climate change also leads to extreme storms with high wind speeds that can damage both crops and storage facilities.

Heavy rainfall also keeps farmers from working in their fields, he said, which means they can’t give their crops the care they need, such as spraying them to protect against pests.

The worst hurricane to hit Barbados was Hurricane Janet, which passed the south coast of the island in 1955, James said. The storm reached wind speeds of 110 to 120 miles per hour and shut down communications and transportation on the island, according to a report from the University of West Indies campus in Mona, Jamaica.

A 2022 study published in Nature Communications found that hurricanes are developing earlier in the season because of rising ocean temperatures. James said last year’s Hurricane Beryl was the earliest he’s ever seen.

Trees and newly planted seedlings were especially vulnerable to high wind speeds when Beryl passed to the south of the island. Flooding caused even further damage.

“What wasn't blown away would have been completely inundated or drowned with water,” James said.

Nurse, the retired UWI professor, said climate change has led to less frequent rain. But when it does rain, it falls heavy and hard, drowning crops and stripping nutrients from the soil in which they grow.

“The other issue is the amount of erosion, soil erosion from the lands and from the farms," Nurse said, “which makes the soils thinner . . . so that there’s quite a lot of rehabilitation after storms for farmers.”

Water

Barbados is part of the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies and is on the eastern side of the Caribbean Islands.

But it is one of the world’s most water scarce countries.

The island is the 20th most water-stressed country in the world and the most water-stressed nation in the Caribbean region, according to a 2024 report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Jaime Paul, a hydrogeologist at the Barbados Water Authority, said the country has almost no surface water. Instead, the island gets most of its water from underground aquifers.

The groundwater is unique because Barbados, unlike its neighboring islands, is not made of volcanic rock. Instead, the island sits on a bed of limestone that was once coral. When rainwater falls, it trickles down through the limestone and pools together in naturally occurring aquifers.

Steve Daniel, an environmental health specialist at the Ministry of Health and Wellness, said the limestone acts as a natural filter, removing pollutants from the rainwater.

Nicole Austin, a water quality technologist at the Barbados Water Authority, said the mineral-rich limestone adds flavor. As rainwater travels through the rock, it picks up calcium, magnesium and sodium, the same minerals that bottled water companies add to make their products taste better.

Alex Ifill, manager of the authority’s water resources and environmental management unit, said pumping stations managed by the government provide Barbadians with about 28 million gallons of water every day.

But climate change poses a threat to the island's pure, mineral-rich groundwater.

Paul said the increasing intensity of rainstorms prevents the aquifers from replenishing. She said the soil can’t absorb all at once the large amounts of water that fall during severe rain storms. What’s left over runs along sidewalks and streets and is lost when it drains into the ocean.

"When it lands on concrete, it's going to find its way towards the sea via that concrete path," Paul said.

Droughts also jeopardize the Barbadian water supply. Nurse, the retired UWI professor, said the island gets too little rain during dry seasons.

The wet season in Barbados is June through November. Its dry season is December through May.

But Paul said the dry season has become increasingly severe in recent years, causing several droughts that forced Barbados to ration its water supply.

Farmers also feel the impact of water scarcity. Davis said Walkers Dairy depends on having enough water.

“Milk is like 90 percent water,” he said. “So that water goes towards milk production as well as cooling the animal.

Davis said he collects rainwater and has his own well, but it’s still not enough. He has to buy additional water from the government.

“If we get periods of very little rain, that's going to mean I’m going to have to use more government-supplied water,” Davis said.

Ifill said Barbados has experienced nine periods that were classified as droughts in the past 20 years.

Water scarcity takes a toll on human health. Daniel said low groundwater levels lead to a higher concentration of nitrates. Consuming nitrates impacts the flow of oxygen in the bloodstream, leading to negative health consequences like Infant Methemoglobinemia, or blue baby syndrome.

Blue baby syndrome results from a lack of oxygen in a baby’s bloodstream. The disease affects children born to mothers who drank nitrate-rich water.

“Climate change is not only now reducing access to water,” Daniel said, “but the quality of the water itself.”

Groundwater isn't the only option to provide drinking water to the people of Barbados. Ifill said the water authority produces an additional 10 million gallons every day from its two desalination plants.

Desalination plants like the Spring Garden facility in St. Michael use brackish water, which forms when saltwater and freshwater mix underground. The plant uses reverse osmosis to take the salt and minerals out of the brackish water, leaving behind a drinkable product.

Limestone purifies water as it seeps through the ground at Harrison's Cave.

But desalination isn’t cheap, and reverse osmosis requires a lot of energy in the form of electricity. Ifill said it’s the only viable way to supplement the limited supply of groundwater.

“Yes, it’s an expensive option,” he said, “but it’s the only other option we have.”

He said the government is currently looking to build a third desalination plant in the northern part of the island.

One company is taking water straight out of the air. Philip Laflouf said he and Kyle Taylor co-founded Eco Sky Water in 2020 when they got the idea to use solar panels to capture moisture from the atmosphere.

“If you think of a dehumidifier,” he said, “we have massive dehumidifiers that are tweaked to try and extract as much moisture from the air as possible.”

The company distributes its water in bottles made of plant-based material. Laflouf said the bottles are compostable and can completely break down in as little as four to five weeks.

“We wanted to actually do a full product that was fully sustainable from beginning to end,” Laflouf said.

He said Eco Sky Water's facility in St. Thomas produces about 1,200 liters of water per day. In 2024, Laflouf said the company had just shy of $1 million BBD in sales.

He said moisture in the air is plentiful in a place as humid as Barbados. “Basically it would take every human on Earth to have four or five of our machines to make an impact on the moisture that's in the atmosphere.”

But some people still don't have access to clean water. Daniel said water scarcity is most dangerous to people who live in poverty, especially residents of “squatter” communities who are more likely to store water in cisterns and other containers.

Mosquitoes breed in the stored water, Daniel said. He said mosquitoes can carry diseases like dengue fever, which leads to headaches and joint pain that can linger for years.

Tourism

Tourism, a key pillar of the Barbadian economy, is also vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Mark Durant, chief planning officer in the Ministry of Tourism and International Transport, said tourism accounts for 13% of the GDP in Barbados.

“When people come to Barbados, it’s sun, sea and sand. So if there is no access to the sand and the sea, then there is a problem for your tourism product,” he said.

Durant said tourists don’t like sargassum on the beach or in the ocean where they swim because it is unpleasant to look at and difficult to move around.

“People call us now to find out if they’re coming in July if sargassum is going to be here,” said Brewster, director of Barbados’ Coastal Zone Management Unit.

Durant said he is unsure if sargassum has a direct impact on the number of tourists visiting Barbados.

But he said he can feel a difference in the quality of the beaches.

“The sand feels dead,” he said. “Before the sand felt electric in the water. The nearshore sand underneath the water, you can tell that there has been an impact.”

It’s also becoming more difficult for tourists to sample the national dish, flying fish and cou-cou. Made from cornmeal and okra, cou-cou has a smooth texture.

Flying fish used to be abundant in the waters of Barbados. The name comes from the fish’s ability to glide over the ocean surface. They swim quickly underwater, then use the momentum to propel themselves out of the water and spread their fins to move forward.

Durant said the dish isn't being offered on menus as frequently as it once was.

“Without foreign exchange, this island is dead," Williams said

Tourism also contributes to climate change. Cruise ships that stop at the island, air travel, energy and water usage of tourists who stay in hotels, and the construction of new hotels all fuel climate change.

The tourism generated by cruise ships is a key part of the island’s economy. But the ships are major polluters and can strain resources, like water, in an already water scarce nation.

Cruise ships affect the agriculture sector, too. Callender, a deputy chief livestock officer, said the Ministry of Agriculture must prepare for the arrival of cruise ships.

“They are demanding of us to supply them with eggs and different food stuff,” he said. “We always make sure that the production levels are high so that we can cater for these particular events.”

The tourist season in Barbados generally runs from November to April. Durant said last year Barbados saw a 300% increase in cruise ship travel to the island during what is normally the off-season.

“We have to see if we can repeat that again this year,” he said.

Durant said more hotels are also being built. He said Barbados is about to spend $1.6 billion BBD in the next 18 months to attract some of the big-name hotels to Barbados.

Aidan Rogers, vice president of the Barbados Renewable Energy Association, said there are less than 100 hotels in Barbados, but they account for 15% of the nation’s energy use. He said 60% of the energy used by hotels is for air conditioning.

He said hotel guests should turn off the air conditioning units when they leave their rooms. Some hotels require the key to be placed in a slot inside the room to activate the air conditioning. Many also use solar water heaters to save energy.

But Barbados cannot survive without tourism.

“Without foreign exchange, this island is dead,” said Ralph “Bizzy” Williams, a prominent Barbadian businessman who received the island’s highest honor, Freedom of Barbados, in 2022 for his contributions to green economic development.

Public Health

Climate change ultimately affects people.

Hurricanes devastate the land and its people by cutting off access to everything from water to quality healthcare.

“The health component of climate change has been overlooked so many times,” said Daniel, an environmental health specialist at the Ministry of Health and Wellness.

He said the ministry is exploring the construction of Smart Hospitals through an initiative of the Pan American Health Organization.

Daniel said Smart Hospitals are constructed and supported in ways designed to ensure that people receive adequate health care during and after hurricanes.

The hospital buildings are constructed to resist the low end of Category 5 hurricane-force winds of 157 mph. They also are designed to maintain reserves of water and electricity to continue providing medical care.

Barbados does not have a Smart Hospital yet. But Daniel said existing hospitals, like the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Bridgetown, are trying to increase water storage capacity to prepare for hurricanes.

He also said there is an elderly care facility being constructed with Smart Hospital components.

The elderly population, people who are 65 and over, also suffer from climate change, specifically because of rising temperatures and stronger hurricanes.

Daniel said older people who live alone are most vulnerable.

“With the advent of climate change, you see elderly people sometimes just sweating away in a closed-up house,” he said.

The Barbados Parliament has recognized weaknesses in infrastructure regarding the elderly and natural disasters.

The 2023-2028 National Policy on Ageing for Barbados cites the lack of transportation services and poor housing conditions for the elderly in a disaster event.

Cynthia Forde, a member of the House of Parliament who represents the St. Thomas parish, said more seniors are living alone because of a shift in Barbadian culture.

She said people used to have large families and at least one child, usually the oldest daughter, would remain at home to care for the parents.

But that is not happening anymore.

“That whole family living together, that communal way has now changed,” she said.

She said once children get married, they move out. Sometimes children don’t check on their parents to ensure they have food and other necessities.

In August 2022, Forde said, she got the idea to start an elder care companion program.

Today, 420 young women have been trained and are caring for the elderly who remain in their homes. Employees receive a small wage to spend the day with older people who live alone.

Forde said the program may soon expand to employing men to work as aides to the elderly.

The Future

Ambassador Thompson said Barbados can’t stop climate change alone. Other countries need to step up, she said.

“You should be willing to put money towards supporting our adaptation and mitigation efforts because you are the cause of our problem,” Thompson said.

But she said all Barbados has gotten so far is empty promises.

“They listen, they smile. They say all the appropriate things. ‘Oh, this is terrible. No, no, of course we are going to help,’” she said. “And then they go and do nothing.”

Barbados is moving forward anyway, Thompson said, doing more with less while those most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions do little at all.

“I would hope that by doing the right thing,” she said, “that I could persuade you that you could do the right thing as well.”