By Dylan Vernon, TIME COME #15, 21 October 2024.

For this TIME COME, I share a presentation I made at the Annual State of the Nation Lecture of the University of Belize. It took place on Wednesday, September 18, 2024, at the UB Jaguar Auditorium in Belmopan under the theme “Fires, Floods & Hurricanes: How Do We Cope?” The audience was mostly UB students but also a national audience could tune in by live streaming. Here is the talk I gave:

All Around Us

When I left my home (a block from the sea) in Belize City this morning, I met climate change right outside my door. I had to manoeuvre through about a foot of tidal sea water – which has been higher and higher each year around this time. I think most Belizeans have experienced or heard about some climate change story like that. Many, for example, have heard of the plight of Monkey River village.

Some of you may be asking what a is a political scientist doing on a panel discussing climate change. Think about it like this: When we build hurricane shelters, we strive to make them resilient to Category 5 storms. These may not come often or at all or hit everywhere, but we must prepare for them. Similarly, we must make our Constitution, governance systems and national policies resilient to worse case scenarios – economic, political and environmental. We must mainstream environmental protection and climate issues in all our laws and policies – in everything. So yes, social scientists also have a role to play in confronting climate change!

If we agree on that, then the core query for us today is clear: How can we better use our Constitution and policies to improve our adaptation and resiliency to the increasing frequency of fires, floods, hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, reef bleaching, deforestation and so on and so on?  Can our Constitution help us cope?

Before addressing this, let me set the background a bit.  It is right to view most existential climate change threats to Belize as ‘collateral damage’ from the past and current actions of developed countries. Belize’s share of global GHG emissions is at a mere 0.01 percent. But we are #114 in the world on the climate Vulnerability Index ranking. This, of course, does not excuse Belize and Belizeans from being part of mitigation and adaptation efforts.

Not all Belizeans experience the ‘collateral damage’ for climate change equally. This is due in part, to pre-existing socio-economic conditions, including inequality and injustice — in Belize and among countries. And this is why there is now the concept of climate injustice. For example, how many Belizeans can build climate resilient homes? How many communities have the equipment and training they need to protect their crops and homes from forest fires? How many poor countries like Belize can afford all of the best adaptation and resilience measures. To all these questions, the answer is not enough.

The Supreme Policy Document

A question for the UB students here today: What would you say are the two most important public policy documents in Belize? I contend that one would certainly be our annual national budget. If you look at a government’s budget, it tells you its true policy priorities. Follow the money! For example, in Belize security and education get lots of money every year, but the human development and the audit department get minuscule amounts.

But what is even more important than the budget — or should be? Our Constitution! The Constitution is not only the supreme law of Belize, but also our supreme policy document. It lays out the policy directives for the nation. It mandates the House of Representatives to make laws and policies for the good of Belize. It mandates the Cabinet and the public service to execute these laws and policies. It mandates the Courts to resolve conflicts of law and policy.

So, it is the Constitution, for example, that sets out the process for enacting ordinary laws, such as the National Protected Areas Act, for Cabinet policy, such as tourism policy, and for High Court judgements that become policy, such as customary land rights for the indigenous Maya. All these have some direct connection to the Constitution.

Belize’s Climate Change Policy Framework

In terms of the governance and policy landscape, Belize boasts a significant body of environmental laws and policies, and several regulatory institutions dedicated to the protection and sustainable management of our terrestrial and marine resources. Some 36% of our land territory and 21% of our marine aeras are under some level of national protection.

Yet, all these policies and this protection do not address every environmental concern. They are not all comprehensive. They may not be sufficiently financed. They may not be effectively implemented. And they may even be subject to rollbacks.  ‘Going backway’ as we say. For example, when lands in certain national protected areas are de-reserved and cleared for private agricultural use, we are literally losing ground.

In the area of climate change, the policy landscape is relatively new for Belize. Most of what has transpired has been in fulfilment of international agreements.  Importantly, as a signatory to the Paris Agreement, Belize has to report on implementation of its National Determined Contributions (NDC) to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Since 2015, the government launched its first National Climate Change Policy, Strategy and Action Plan and established the National Climate Change Office with the responsibility to coordinate the development of policies and to report on climate change and climate resilience actions. Since then, other policies and strategies related to climate change have been developed, for example, on climate finance. In terms of climate policy impact, I would assume that while there have been some positive developments, it’s likely too early to comprehensively assess impact and outcomes. For now, I will leave that assessment to the environmental and climate experts.

 The Core Questions

But let’s get to the core question I posed earlier: Can we better use our Constitution and national policies to improve our adaptation and resiliency to climate change? Yes, we can!

Some of you will know that Belize is currently engaged in its second process of constitutional reform since independence. The first was in 1999. As such, today we, you have the rare opportunity to strengthen the Constitution not only to give greater protection to our environment, but also to include climate issues. To understand why doing this makes sense, we need to answer three questions: (1) what is deficient in the current Constitution in terms of the environment and climate change? (2) how can we improve it? and (3) what difference will it make, if any?

In one study of the over 196 states in the world, some 75% now have environmental constitutional provisions. However, only 6% or 11 states have climate change related provisions. The research is already proving that enshrining such rights in constitutions provides supreme law backing to environmental protection and to climate change resilience.

What is in Our Constitution Now?

Belize is among the 94% of countries without a constitutional mention of climate change. We also have no comprehensive climate change legislation. Yes, we have evolving policies but not overarching legislation. But few people know that Belize is one of 75% of countries in the world that has a constitutional reference to the environment. During the public consultations on the independence constitution in 1981, a statement on the environment was placed in the Preamble of the Constitution based on a citizen’s recommendation. That Clause (e) of the Preamble states:

Whereas the people of Belize-

(e)     require policies of state which…protect the environment….NOW, THEREFORE, the following provisions shall have effect in the Constitution of Belize:…

The rest of the Constitution should have expanded on this policy directive. However, an examination of the “following provisions” indicate that no other direct reference is made to the environment at all. Preambular Clause (e) is not given life nor teeth in the rest of the Constitution. Additionally, the Preamble of the Constitution is not independently legally enforceable as is the rest of the Constitution.

In short, our preambular policy directive to protect the environment is important but, on its own, it is not strong enough because it is not followed through in the enforceable parts of the Constitution.

 How do we Improve our Constitution?

I think you will all agree that there is great national pride among most Belizeans for our natural environment. There is ever stronger acknowledgement of its value and importance to our sustainable development – including to tourism development and our fishing industry. And there is growing awareness of our imperative to protect it and to better manage it.  So, my key contention is this:  It is now time to provide the environment greater constitutional protection and, at the same time, address climate change.

In addition to strengthening the statement in the Preamble on protecting the environment, consideration should be given to include a preambular acknowledgment of the dangers of climate change and a directive to address it through policymaking. More substantively, serious consideration must be given to adding a totally new Chapter on environmental and climate matters in the substantive part of our new Constitution.  What should we include? After reviewing best practices around the world, I offer seven considerations:

1. We should acknowledge the intrinsic value of Belize’s diverse natural environment and the dangers of climate change.
2. We should include the human right to a healthy and clean natural environment and to climate change adaptation.
3. We should include duties of the state and of Belizeans to protect the environment and mitigate climate change.
4. We should include rights of the natural environment and climate to protection and sustainable use.
5. We should include the setting-up and implementation of institutions and mechanisms that address environmental protections and climate change.
6. We should ensure that Belizeans and our communities receive information and are consulted on policy decisions that impact our environment and access to climate justice.
7. We should prohibit or regulate specific actions that seriously threaten the natural environment and contribute to climate change (such as certain kinds of land clearing, mining, offshore drilling).

Apart from the fact that these do not include the important human rights to water, clean air, clean soil and sanitation, they also need to be part of a wider package of meaningful constitutional reform.

What Difference can this make?

So, you may be asking: what difference would all this make? Well, the comparative research shows that several other countries that have enacted similar provisions have gained lasting benefits. For example, one study found that of 95 nations that have enshrined the right to a healthy environment, 78 of them improved their environment laws, policies and regulatory frameworks afterwards.

While no constitution is a panacea, there can be exciting potential benefits for Belize. I share five of these:

1. As Belizeans, we would have a new right to a healthy environment.
2. Our existing and new environmental and climate-related laws and policies would gain constitutional backing.
3. The provisions would help to prevent rollbacks of laws and policies due, for example, to the short-termism of electoral cycles and changes of governments.
4. Our courts would have more constitutional guidance to adjudicate environmental and climate cases.
5. And it is highly likely that there will be greater public interest and knowledge of issues related to environmental and climate justice.

In more concrete terms, with the support of the Constitution, it would be easier to successfully advocate for more sea walls, better drainage, more resilient homes, decreasing toxic agricultural runoff, stopping de-reservations, protecting crops from forest fires, taking more environmental offenders to courts and so on.

Getting There

Getting there won’t be easy. There will certainly be some powerful opposition from some in governments and in the private sector who worry about short-term economic and investment disincentives. But we know that there are also longer-term economic disincentives if we lose more of our terrestrial and marine environment – for example, for tourism and agriculture.

Therefore, environmental and climate advocates, and all of us who agree, will have to organise educational and advocacy campaigns. We will have to argue why the existing legal framework is not sufficient for protecting the environment and explain the value added of entrenching environmental and climate provisions in the Constitution. We will have to show the longer-term economic benefits of such provisions. And we will have to advocate for climate justice and climate finance – both nationally and internationally.

We should be encouraged that some environmental organisations are engaging with the People’s Constitution Commission to push for some of the measures I have outlined. For example, Oceana-Belize has launched a petition drive in the form of a letter to parliamentarians advocating for the stronger environmental provisions in the Constitution beyond the Preamble. I urge all of you to review and sign the petition that can be found on the Oceana website.

In summary, my core message is this: Belize’s national goals of environmental protection and climate change mitigation will be better achieved and sustained if we if elevate them up to our supreme law of the land – the Constitution.  In short, the Constitution can help us cope with the increasing frequency and worsening damage from the likes of fires, floods, and hurricanes.

A full recording of the UB Event can be found here.

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