For Immediate Release: May 25, 2021
Contact: press@clintonfoundation.org
Today, President Clinton Kicks Off Climate Action for Caribbean and Global Resilience with Secretary John Kerry and Special Adviser and Assistant Secretary-General for Climate Change Selwin Hart
From May 25-27, President Clinton and Chelsea Clinton will hold the sixth convening of the Clinton Global Initiative Action Network on Post-Disaster Recovery, featuring conversations with Secretary John Kerry, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate; Selwin Hart, Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General and Assistant Secretary-General of the Climate Action Team; Jamila Falak, Jamaican singer, songwriter, and producer; Ambassador Henrietta Elizabeth Thompson, Permanent Representative of Barbados to the United Nations; Ingrid Vila-Biaggi, Co-Founder & President, CAMBIO, Ada Monzón, chief meteorologist, Noticentro al Amanecer-WAPA TV, WKAQ Radio & NotiCel; and more.
New York, NY – Today starts the sixth convening of the Clinton Global Initiative Action Network on Post-Disaster Recovery. Opening the event, President Clinton will host John Kerry, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate; and Selwin Hart, Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General and Assistant Secretary-General of the Climate Action Team for a conversation focused on climate action and global resiliency. On Thursday, May 27th, Chelsea Clinton will close the event with a panel discussion on engaging girls and women on climate action.
Through the Action Network, CGI members have made 116 commitments with an estimated $395 million in impact across Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Dominica, Barbados, and islands across the region.
This event will be streamed at: www.clintonfoundation.org/caribbean
May 25, 2021 | 11:00 a.m.: Climate Action for Caribbean and Global Resilience with President Bill Clinton
- President Bill Clinton, Founder and Board Chair, Clinton Foundation 42nd President of the United States
- Secretary John Kerry, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate
- Selwin Hart, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General and Assistant Secretary-General of the Climate Action Team
As the Caribbean region continues to respond to and prepare for ongoing crises – including COVID-19, the volcanic eruption in St. Vincent, earthquakes, and the knock-on effects on the education, agricultural and economic sectors – June 1 also marks the start of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, which forecasters predict will be more active than usual. This serves as a reminder that the Caribbean region and small island states continue to be on the frontlines of extreme weather and natural disasters exacerbated by climate change.
As the international community continues to advocate for quick, resilient focused action to address climate change, it is more important than ever to make sure Caribbean voices and solutions are at the forefront of those discussions. In this session, speakers will identify strategies to support climate adaptation and mitigation, including innovative financing models, outline regional successes that can be scaled globally, and call out opportunities for the international community to make additional investments in the region in order to foster a more resilient, sustainable, dynamic and inclusive future for the people of the Caribbean.
President Clinton will also announce a new Commitment to Action, Proposing an Earthquake Early Warning System for Puerto Rico, launched by Grillo in partnership with IBM; Resiliency and Business Innovation, a program of the PR Science, Technology, and Research Trust; and Puerto Rico Seismic Network.
Grillo, in partnership with IBM, the Resiliency and Business Innovation Program of the Puerto Rico Science, Research & Technology Trust, and the Puerto Rico Seismic Network, is committing to expanding their earthquake sensor technology to Puerto Rico. The Caribbean is a highly seismic region due to its location at the convergence zone between major tectonic plates and communities across the region are frequently impacted by seismic events. In January 2020, southern Puerto Rico was impacted by a series of earthquakes over several weeks that damaged homes and infrastructure and caused displacement. To improve earthquake monitoring on the island, Grillo and its partners will deploy 90 sensors in Puerto Rico which will be hosted by local businesses and supported by local scientists through the Seismic Network. Using the open data from this initiative, the partners intend to use this expansion to build the foundation for an Earthquake Early Warning system for the Caribbean region.
“Earthquake early warning (EEW) systems have a crucial role in helping to protect our communities so we welcome Grillo’s global expansion with its OpenEEW-based platform through today’s Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to Action,” said IBM’s Daniel Krook, Chief Technology Officer, Call for Code. “The open source community is helping advance low-cost EEW technology and we are pleased to work with these partners to test it on the ground in Puerto Rico through a Call for Code deployment model.”
Following the opening plenary, the following virtual events will take place:
- Tuesday, May 25: 2:00 – 3:00 p.m.: Renewable, Resilient Energy: Innovative Models for Deploying to Scale
- Wednesday, May 26: 2:00 – 3:30 p.m.: Mental Health: Responding to COVID-19 and Facing Future Crises in the Caribbean
- Wednesday, May 26: 4:00 – 5:00 p.m.: Caribbean Preparedness: Forecasts and Solutions for the 2021 Hurricane Season and Beyond
- Thursday, May 27: 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.: Tree Planting: A Ground-Up Global Solution to Climate Change and Food Insecurity
- Thursday, May 27: 2:00 – 3:00 p.m.: Closing Plenary on Girls and Women for Climate Action with Chelsea Clinton
This virtual meeting is convened in partnership with Tarsadia Foundation, InterEnergy, IBM/The Weather Channel, Swiss Re, MPC Energy Solutions, First Bank Puerto Rico, and Banco Popular of Puerto Rico. The CGI Action Networks, along with Clinton Global Initiative University, follows the success of CGI and its Commitment to Action model. Over the years, CGI and its partners have brought together leaders from across sectors to develop Commitments to Action that when fully funded and implemented will improve the lives of more than 430 million people in 180 countries worldwide.
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About the Clinton Foundation
Building on a lifetime of public service, President Clinton established the Clinton Foundation on the simple belief that everyone deserves a chance to succeed, everyone has a responsibility to act, and we all do better when we work together. For nearly two decades, those values have energized the work of the Foundation in overcoming complex challenges and improving the lives of people across the United States and around the world.
As an operating foundation, we work on issues directly or with strategic partners from the business, government, and nonprofit sectors to create economic opportunity, improve public health, and inspire civic engagement and service. Our programs are designed to make a real difference today while serving as proven models for tomorrow. The goal of every effort is to use available resources to get better results faster – at the lowest possible cost.
We firmly believe that when diverse groups of people bring resources together in the spirit of true cooperation, transformative ideas will emerge to drive life-changing action.
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