The Global Sustainable Island Summit 2024 kicked off in Canada’s smallest province, Prince Edward Island, on May 21, with the three-day event uniting over 250 attendees and speakers from 50+ islands around the world to share best practices on renewable energy and sustainability matters. Experts and representatives discussed research, policy, and dwelled on shared experiences while overlooking the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, realizing that despite their geographical locations, they shared common challenges, issues, and were pioneering similar solutions.
A leader in renewable energy implementation, Prince Edward Island has set aggressive net-zero goals that would make the province carbon neutral by 2040, ten years before the rest of Canada.
“You always want to ask yourself in government, ‘Are we doing enough? Are we doing it the right way?’” posited Prince Edward Island Premier Dennis King, “The best way to do that sometimes is to measure yourself against other jurisdictions, to say, ‘What are they doing? How are they doing it?’”
If not during the myriad of panel discussions, attendees shared knowledge and problem-solved in every corner of the conference venue. Adding to the conversation were a cohort of students from island territories who had been sponsored by the Marine Institute via the Our Shared Ocean Programme to take part and share their research with attendees. The group were selected from a pool of 30 students who are participating in a 2-month virtual course focused on inter-regional sustainable development. The students represented every major island region, and their research provided insight into the types of innovations and developments happening on the ground within their communities.
Building Bridges
Creating links and building bridges between island stakeholders is key in accelerating the transition to sustainable, resilient communities. Where civil society and academia find opportunities to work together to solve issues, collaborations between governments can often be the missing link for long-lasting impact. Caribbean ministerial delegations attended from Saint Kitts & Nevis, Grenada and Saint Vincent & the Grenadines showcased the region’s willingness to develop opportunities for climate action, with the government of Prince Edward Island engaging in several multilateral talks and visits of the province’s renewable energy programmes.
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“Quite often when one thinks of ‘island,’ one doesn’t immediately think of Canada. Therefore, I thank the leadership of Prince Edward Island, the team at Island Innovation, and islands across Europe, Africa, the Pacific, the Mediterranean, and the Caribbean for highlighting that there is more that unites us than divides and that our similarities represent a solid bedrock for collaboration. We are connected by more than sea and oceans, we are all connected by something deeper; our sheer resilience and our remarkable adaptability to change,” expressed Saint Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Dr. Terrance Drew during his opening keynote, “I am heartened today as the Leader of the smallest nation in the Western Hemisphere to be here in the 2nd largest country in the world, for the survival of islands.”
Driving Innovation
The Global Sustainable Island Summit has served as a springboard into the 4th International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS4) conference in Antigua & Barbuda setting in motion the next decade of island policies and goals in several sustainability-related fields. Several stakeholders took the knowledge gained in Prince Edward Island immediately down to the sidelines of SIDS4, where the collaboration towards climate adaptation and sustainable development have been key themes.
In Antigua and Barbuda, the 2,000-strong contingent of experts from civil society, academia, industry, and policy there to discuss the future of small islands echo the statement made by the Dean of Academics of the University of Saint Martin Dr. Gale Rigobert, “Small is also nimble, malleable. So it affords us the opportunities to test solutions, to test policies, and to come up with very quick solutions.” Islands, let they be Prince Edward or Antigua and Barbuda, share more in common that one may think, and if the Global Sustainable Island Summit is anything to go by, opportunities to develop workable solutions for these communities are in the works.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by Impakter.com columnists are their own, not those of Impakter.com — In the Cover Photo: Hon. Dr Joyelle Clarke, Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment and Climate Action and Constituency Empowerment, Government of Saint Kitts and Nevis, Hon. Steven Myers, Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Action, Government of Prince Edward Island and Hon. Kerryne James, Minister for Climate Resilience, the Environment, and Renewable Energy, Government of Grenada participate in a panel discussion. Cover Photo Credit: Prince Edward Island Government.
