Financing climate justice in the Caribbean
A Saint Lucian perspective on building resilience for Small Island Developing States
The term ‘climate finance’ gets bandied around a lot — but what does it tangibly mean for a country on the frontlines of climate change? We talked to Skeeta Carasco, a pioneering climate finance professional working with RMI in Saint Lucia, to find out.
In Saint Lucia, talk about the environment inevitably turns to the Pitons. The twin peaks tower 2,500 feet above sea level, cutting a lush and dramatic profile between the raging Atlantic Ocean and the placid Caribbean Sea. The land and sea of the Pitons Management Area make up a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of just 21 across the Caribbean.
From personal experience, I can say the Pitons take one’s breath away. Even after more than 5,000 nautical miles of sailing and 30+ countries, I found myself silent as we approached Soufrière in a gentle morning light.
With a population of just over 180,000 Saint Lucia is categorized as a Small Island Developing State. This group of 39 distinct countries and 18 regional participants is scattered across the world’s oceans and seas. They’re grouped together as they face a set of unique social, environmental and economic challenges in the context of a warming planet.
Most of the Small Island Developing States, especially in the Caribbean, are former (and current!) colonial territories; they have a dark history of imperial exploitation and extraction, only gaining independence and autonomy as recently as the 20th and 21st centuries. Now, in the face of a shifting and heating planet, they are still facing acute economic vulnerability and climate risk.
As we explored Saint Lucia from the jungle-filled interior to the beautiful volcanic beaches, we learned that the country is rich in renewable energy sources, flush with solar, wind, and geothermal energy potential. But today, the island nation is still reliant on imported fossil fuels for most of its energy generation. As much as 95% of the island’s grid is powered by dirty energies.
It’s not because of a lack of public support or political movement that Saint Lucia remains tethered to non-renewable energies; rather, structural challenges and access to capital play a large role.
We had the chance to interview Skeeta Carasco, a Saint Lucian climate finance professional, who is working to help her nation access the funding it needs to realize a sustainable energy transition and build climate resilience.
Carasco, who grew up without electricity on the southwestern side of the island, was motivated by witnessing the impacts of climate change firsthand to take action in her career. After working as a regulator for Saint Lucia’s national utility, Carasco joined RMI (founded as the Rocky Mountain Institute) last year as the first advisor in the Caribbean for the Climate Finance Access Network.
The Climate Finance Access Network, or CFAN, is coordinated by RMI and “aims to unlock and accelerate climate finance at scale by deploying highly trained climate finance advisors to supplement capacity in developing countries’ governments and direct access entities.” CFAN advisors like Carasco “work to develop high-quality projects and to build lasting national capacity that will ultimately maximize adaptation and mitigation outcomes.”
Join us as we learn about what it will take to create a sustainable and just future for Saint Lucia and across the Caribbean.
The Green Journey: Thanks for joining us, Skeeta! Really excited for this conversation. Can you start by telling us a bit about your career path and how it led you to the Climate Finance Access Network?
Skeeta Carasco: I started my career in 2014 as a Regulatory Economist for Saint Lucia’s National Utilities Regulatory Commission. In this capacity, I was analyzing utility rate applications and projects, as well as working on regulatory initiatives considering the phase-out of fossil fuel production and the transition to renewable systems. One of the things you realize pretty quickly working at a utility regulator is that finance is nearly always a deciding factor for project realization. I found that in Saint Lucia, especially when it came to new renewable power plants – we had many plans, but lacked the financing to move forward.
I joined RMI in 2023 with the motivation to work on the problem of funding and to break down Saint Lucia’s barriers to climate finance.
The Green Journey: What are the barriers that Saint Lucia faces in getting access to climate finance?
Skeeta Carasco: One of the biggest barriers is capacity. The climate finance mechanisms that exist today are very onerous and bureaucratic, designed with lots of gatekeeping measures. It’s time-consuming and demanding to access these, and often Small Island Developing States or other vulnerable nations simply lack the in-house capacity to work on proposals. In the case of Saint Lucia, we’re a small country where almost 70% of local talent works in tourism, for example. So often you have international experts flying in, which is not sustainable either in terms of a carbon-free business model or for building in-country talent and qualifications.
But in addition to capacity, high debt levels and limited fiscal space of vulnerable nations like Saint Lucia make it difficult to access additional loans to address the climate challenge.
The Green Journey: Can you explain why the loan-based model of climate finance is insufficient for Small Island Developing States, and other developing nations?
Skeeta Carasco: While loans are useful, they require the borrower to apply for financing, and then pay it back over time — often with interest. Unless it’s a concessional loan, the further the economy is away from meeting particular criteria, set in the developed world, the higher the interest rates. Some of Saint Lucia’s qualities — like our comparatively small economic size, lack of industry diversity, and high debt levels make loans difficult to get, or the interest rates unjustly high. It’s an impossible situation.
Imagine this: your upstream neighbor has a dam on his property that holds in a big river. If the river is set free, unchecked, it will flood your home. You live in fear that he does this, you ask him not to do it, but one day he does. Your home, the only place you have ever lived, is gone. So you go upstream to ask him what he can offer you to help, now that he has destroyed the place you live. And he offers to lend you money to pay for the repairs — but with interest. And also - your salary is five times less than his. What can you do? You’re trapped in a crisis of someone else’s doing.
The Green Journey: This sounds like an environmental justice issue.
Skeeta Carasco: It’s absolutely an environmental justice issue. Saint Lucia produces less than 0.01% of global greenhouse gas emissions. And yet, we and other countries in the Caribbean are the ones at the front lines, and this vulnerability prevents us structurally from being able to catch up. For example, when Hurricane Tomas hit in 2010, there were damages and losses on the island that amounted to 43% of the country's GDP. When Hurricane Maria hit our neighbor, Dominica, in 2017, damage was 226% of the country’s GDP.
The Green Journey: Okay, let’s get excited about some of the ways climate finance can make a difference! Can you tell us about some of the projects that climate finance can help fund, or is already helping to fund, in Saint Lucia?
Skeeta Carasco: Here’s one that I’m currently excited about. Saint Lucia is in the process of preparing a funding proposal for the Green Climate Fund to implement a fisheries sectoral strategy and adaptation plan – how the fisheries sector can adapt to an ocean environment that changes with the climate.
Another exciting project that the Saint Lucian government is currently seeking financing for is the installation of renewable energy microgrids at critical facilities. Microgrid projects build climate resilience and support decarbonization goals at the same time — microgrids build Saint Lucia’s ability to keep power going to schools, hospitals, and water treatment plants in the case of natural disaster.
Another example would be an emerging project concept to build a microgrid at Saint Lucia’s biggest water treatment plant.
This plant serves 60% of the population — during a climate change impact like a hurricane, if this plant goes offline, we have a humanitarian disaster. Microgrid facilities providing emergency power and water like this one can go a long way towards improving resilience and allowing survival in what are otherwise sometimes very grim circumstances.
The Green Journey: At the end of our interviews, we always ask: what gives you hope?
Skeeta Carasco: The work that I’m doing gives me hope: building an in-country network so that climate finance can be accessed by Caribbean countries in a way that is meaningful towards the development of its people. We’re working to train others, and build a community of people who are ready to deliver a system in my region that improves lives and livelihoods.