<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cubasupport.ie\/latest\/wp-content\/uploads\/tiago-claro-ajV7ShH4teo-unsplash-1536x1039-1.jpeg?resize=747%2C506&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
- \n
- In spring 2017, the Cuban government approved Tarea Vida (\u2018Life Task\u2019), its long-term plan to confront climate change.<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n
- It identifies at-risk populations and regions, formulates a hierarchy of \u201cstrategic areas\u201d and \u201ctasks\u201d in which scientists and social scientists work alongside local communities, specialists and authorities.<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n
- To be implemented in stages from 2017 to the year 2100, Tarea Vida also incorporates mitigation actions like the shift to renewable energy sources and legal enforcement of environmental protections.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nCuba may be responsible for only 0.08% of global CO2 <\/sub>emissions, but this Caribbean island is disproportionately hard-hit by the effects of climate change. The frequency and severity of extreme weather events \u2013 hurricanes, drought, torrential rain, flooding \u2013 is increasing, to the detriment of ecosystems, food production, and public health. Without action to protect the coastline from rising sea levels, up to 10% of Cuban territory could be submerged by the end of the century. This risks wiping out coastal towns, polluting water supplies, destroying agricultural lands, ruining tourist beaches, and forcing one million people to relocate \u2013 some 9% of the population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But unlike in many countries, where climate action is always something promised for the future, in Cuba, serious action is being taken now. Between 2006<\/a> and 2020<\/a>, several international reports identified the island nation as the world leader in sustainable development. And in spring 2017, the Cuban government approved Tarea Vida (\u2018Life Task\u2019), its long-term plan to confront climate change. The plan identifies at-risk populations and regions, formulating a hierarchy of \u201cstrategic areas\u201d and \u201ctasks\u201d in which climate scientists, ecologists, and social scientists work alongside local communities, specialists, and authorities to respond to specific threats. To be progressively implemented in stages from 2017 to the year 2100, Tarea Vida also incorporates mitigation actions like the shift to renewable energy sources and legal enforcement of environmental protections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In summer 2021, I went to Cuba to learn about Tarea Vida and produce a documentary<\/a> to be shown during the COP26 international climate change conference in Glasgow. My visit coincided with a surge in COVID-19 cases on the island, and the public health measures imposed to reduce contagion, as well as the July 11 protests<\/a>. Despite these conditions, we moved freely throughout Havana interviewing climate and social scientists, policymakers, leaders of Cuba\u2019s Civil Defense, people in the street, and communities vulnerable to climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Havana\u2019s Santa Fe coastline, I came across a fisherman living with his family among abandoned buildings. He described how, when the water floods the ground floor, their home is like a ship at sea. Despite the threat, they intend to stay: \u201cThis house can be reduced to one block; I\u2019m not moving,\u201d he said. The first \u201ctask\u201d in Tarea Vida includes protecting these vulnerable communities through relocating households or entire settlements. The Cuban state pays for relocation, including the construction of new homes, social services, and public infrastructure. However, it is not mandatory, meaning that these residents must be involved in the decision-making and construction process. There are also examples of communities proposing their own adaptation strategies, enabling them to remain on the coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tarea Vida is the culmination of decades of environmental protection regulation, the promotion of sustainable development and scientific investigation. Within Cuba, it is conceived of as a new basis for development, part of a cultural change and a broader process of decentralisation of responsibilities, powers, and budgets to local communities. Here, we see that environmental considerations are integral to Cuba\u2019s national development strategy, rather than just a side concern. Tarea Vida is also driven by necessity; climate change is already impacting life on the island. \u201cToday in Cuba, the country\u2019s climate is undergoing a complete transition from a humid tropical climate toward a subhumid climate, in which the patterns of rain, availability of water, soil conditions, and temperatures will be different,\u201d explains Orlando Rey Santos, a ministerial adviser who led Cuba\u2019s delegation to COP26. \u201cWe will have to feed ourselves differently, build differently, dress differently. It is very complex.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018From rainforest to cane field\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cdn.thewire.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/12161336\/tiago-claro-oi-4ZMgBSbA-unsplash-scaled.jpg?w=747&ssl=1\")
Photo: tiago claro\/Unsplash<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Centuries of colonial and then imperialist exploitation and the imposition of the agro-export model led to chronic deforestation and soil erosion in Cuba. The expansion of the sugar industry reduced the island\u2019s forest cover from 95 % pre-colonisation to 14% at the moment of the revolution in 1959, turning Cuba \u201cfrom rainforest to cane field,\u201d as Cuban environmental historian Reinaldo Funes Monzote titled his award-winning book<\/a>. Redressing this historical legacy became part of the project for revolutionary transformation post-1959, which sought to break the chains of underdevelopment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the revolutionaries\u2019 early aspirations, Cuba continued to be dominated by the sugar industry through its trade with the Soviet bloc. Productive activities that contributed to pollution and erosion continued, including on account of Cuba\u2019s embrace of the so-called \u201cGreen Revolution\u201d of mechanised agriculture \u2013 an approach adopted in many developing countries to increase agricultural output.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the detrimental effects were gradually recognised and incrementally redressed, particularly from the 1990s. There has been an increasing concern with protecting the natural endowments of the Cuban archipelago, which boasts extraordinary biodiversity and coastal resources of global importance. The environmental agenda was backed up by Cuba\u2019s scientific and institutional capacity and facilitated by its political-economic framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his work<\/a> on Cuban environmental law, Oliver A. Houck observed that: \u201cpost-revolutionary Cuban law promoted public and collective values from the start. Environmental laws fit easily into this framework.\u201d As early as May 1959, the Agrarian Reform Law gave the state responsibility for protecting natural areas, initiated reforestation programs, and excluded forest reserves from distribution to agricultural collectives. Cuba\u2019s socialist system prioritises human welfare, and the social character of property facilitates environmental protection and the rational use of natural resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This process was not automatic \u2013 rather, it required geographers and environmentalists to drive the post-1959 government\u2019s environmental agenda. Outstanding among them was Antonio N\u00fa\u00f1ez Jim\u00e9nez, a socialist and professor of geography in the 1950s. He served as a captain in Che Guevara\u2019s Rebel Army column and headed the National Institute of Agrarian Reform, among other roles. Influenced by N\u00fa\u00f1ez Jim\u00e9nez, Fidel Castro also propelled Cuba\u2019s environmental movement. Tirso W. S\u00e1enz, who worked closely with Guevara in the early 1960s and headed Cuba\u2019s first environmental commission from 1976 told me, \u201cFidel was the main driving force for the incorporation of environmental concerns into Cuban policy.\u201d The Cuban Communist Party has also openly endorsed environmental protection and sustainable growth, which, according to Houck, \u201cprovides significant legitimacy to environmental programs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1976, Cuba was among the first countries in the world to include environmental issues in its constitution, and the National Commission for the Protection of the Environment and the Rational Use of Natural Resources was set up. That was eleven years before the UN\u2019s Brundtland Report<\/a> introduced the notion of \u201csustainable development\u201d to the world. In the following decades, studies and projects were undertaken and environmental regulations introduced to protect fauna and flora. In 1992, Fidel Castro delivered an uncharacteristically short and appropriately alarming speech at the Earth Summit in Brazil. He blamed exploitative and unequal international relations, resulting from colonialism and imperialism, for the rapacious environmental destruction fueled by capitalist consumer societies, threatening the extinction of mankind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That year, a commitment to sustainable development was introduced to the Cuban constitution. Scientific investigations into the impact of climate change in Cuba were initiated. In 1994, a new Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (CITMA) was established. It devised a National Environment Strategy, which was adopted in 1997, the same year Law 81 was approved in the National Assembly. Laura Rivalta, a University of Havana law graduate specialising in environmental regulations, explains that this law gave CITMA broad powers to \u201ccontrol, direct, and execute environmental policy\u201d while putting \u201cboundaries and limits\u201d on the activities of foreign companies operating in Cuba. \u201cThe new Cuban Constitution approved in 2019 establishes the right to enjoy a healthy and balanced environment as a human right,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not beholden to profit<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cdn.thewire.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/12160745\/kwan-fung-R26rTxVGcXQ-unsplash-scaled.jpg?w=747&ssl=1\")
Photo: kwan fung\/Unsplash<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Four factors underpin Cuba\u2019s capacity to develop such an ambitious state plan. First, Cuba\u2019s state-dominated, centrally planned economy helps the government to mobilise resources and direct national strategy without having to incentivise private profit \u2013 unlike other countries that rely on \u201cmarket solutions\u201d for climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Second, Tarea Vida builds on Cuba\u2019s world-leading record of anticipating and responding to risks and natural disasters. This has already been frequently demonstrated in its response to hurricanes and, since March 2020, in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Third is Cuba\u2019s Civil Defense system, established following the devastating Hurricane Flora of 1963. During my visit to the national command, Lieutenant Colonel Gloria Gelis Mart\u00ednez described their \u201coperational and technical procedures for early warning of the impact of extreme meteorological events. We have surveillance zones and maximum alert zones where we monitor the approach of an event and its impact.\u201d A National Defense Council coordinates this system and is reproduced at provincial, municipal, and neighborhood levels throughout the country. Meteorologist Eduardo Planos explained:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the local level, risk-study centers focus on the specific phenomenon, and the neighborhood is organised. The social organisations in each area take preventative measures. Local governments set up local defense councils, which organise how the system works, distribute basic foodstuff so people don\u2019t go without, and check electrical installations and the evacuation plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fourth is Cuba\u2019s capacity to collect and analyze local data. Rey Santos highlights what this means practically:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Studies indicate that the average rise in sea level will be around 29 centimeters by 2050. However, we have carried out the same analysis for 66 points of the national territory, as there are differences depending on local conditions. To carry out such an analysis, taking IPCC data on global sea level rises to each location in Cuba can only be done if you are backed up by strong science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- It identifies at-risk populations and regions, formulates a hierarchy of \u201cstrategic areas\u201d and \u201ctasks\u201d in which scientists and social scientists work alongside local communities, specialists and authorities.<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cdn.thewire.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/12161127\/robin-canfield-Mzm7EmMj6_0-unsplash-scaled.jpg?w=747&ssl=1\")