Building Climate Solutions Through Trustful, Ethical, and Localized Co-Development

The Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Latin American and Caribbean region are among the most vulnerable to climate change, with intensifying and more frequent disasters posing a significant threat to infrastructure, human life, and to achieving global Sustainable Development Goals. Urgent regional and localized approaches are needed for coordinated climate risk assessment and anticipatory action strategies backed by science-informed climate modeling (e.g., Earth Observation) and a strong global community of support. In this paper, we detail the fundamental challenges to implementing climate action strategies as elucidated during a co-development initiative led by a team of Jamaican and international interdisciplinary, cross-sector experts on SIDS climate catastrophes. Following the principles of co-design, a regional review, and discourse analysis with Systems Thinking approaches, we suggest a new place-based framework involving relevant sectors of society and often marginalized voices as crucial to building real climate resilience through bottom-up approaches. The Relationship and Place-Based Framework provides an international coordination and collaboration model with ethical space for co-development and a theoretical basis for climate action strategies. With a focus on local ownership and self-determination as the basis of climate-informed governance, actors and institutions might simultaneously manage the interplays of single and multi-hazards and other residual risks.