A pattern worth naming

At the CANARI Mid-Term Review, one session asked what has changed since 2021. Under the environment theme, a cluster of points was raised that, read together, suggested something more than familiar grievances: the resurgence of the fossil fuel lobby, reduced global ambition, geoengineering ‘solutions’ at a new scale, and a civil society sector so short of funds that it may accept partnerships with companies whose own demands on natural resources are growing. I have given the pattern a name: Wicked Environmental Threats, or WETs, meaning overt assaults on natural resources and the environment from powerful political and economic actors.

This post asks whether the label describes anything genuinely new and, if so, what Caribbean civil society might do about developments that largely lie beyond the Region’s control. It is exploratory: some of the evidence is firm, some is contested, and some rests on perception rather than published sources.

Wicked, but with authors

The term ‘wicked problem’ comes from Rittel and Webber (1973), for problems with no definitive formulation and no solution that can be tried without consequence. Levin et al. (2012) called climate change ‘super wicked’ because time is running out and those causing the problem are also those seeking to solve it. The variation I suggest is that part of the problem is now produced, deliberately and openly, by identifiable actors with the power to shape the rules.

Delay has been with us for decades (Lamb et al., 2020); the question is whether the period since 2021 has seen a shift from delaying action to dismantling the machinery for it. The evidence suggests that it may well have. Whether this is ‘a new form or manifestation of neoliberalism’ is more doubtful. Deregulation and the privileging of extraction are recognisably neoliberal, yet governing by executive decree and, in Venezuela, force sits less comfortably with a market narrative. I offer the thesis as a provocation to be tested, not a conclusion.

Rollback in the North

The United States offers the clearest example. In February 2026 the Environmental Protection Agency finalised the repeal of the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which it described as the largest deregulatory action in US history. In January 2026 the administration announced its intention to withdraw from the UNFCCC and the IPCC, and its draft offshore leasing programme proposes up to 34 lease sales. It also accounted for about three-quarters of the global fall in development assistance in 2025, which brings the story round to the funding of civil society.

This is not an American peculiarity. In the United Kingdom, the Rosebank and Jackdaw consents were ruled unlawful in January 2025, yet new applications were lodged in July 2026 and the new government has signalled a ‘pragmatic’ approach, with energy security the dominant argument. Globally, the Production Gap Report found that governments plan to produce about 120% more fossil fuels in 2030 than is consistent with 1.5°C, and the main decision at COP30 made no mention of fossil fuels at all. In Venezuela, as the Council on Foreign Relations observed, the United States is ‘asserting control for the first time over another country’s petroleum resources’.

The Caribbean: victim and frontier

The uncomfortable feature of the Caribbean picture is that the Region is on both sides of the ledger. Guyana produced about 903,000 barrels a day in April 2026. The royalty on the Stabroek block is only 2%, and withdrawals from the Natural Resource Fund represent roughly a third of the 2026 budget. A back-of-envelope calculation of my own, not a published figure, suggests that burning Stabroek oil could release of the order of 130 to 140 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, many times Guyana’s national inventory. This should be read as illustrative only.

Barbados presents the most striking tension. In June 2026 the Government opened 19 ultra-deepwater blocks for bids, whilst its Prime Minister remains one of the most prominent voices on climate justice. Official statements refer to very large volumes of oil in place, but these are seismic estimates and the reserves are unproven. The rationale is that revenues would help finance the transition and resilience. Given debt burdens, hurricane losses and shrinking concessional finance, it is not difficult to understand the appeal. In other words, the wickedness is partly exported: a global system that has failed to deliver finance on the scale needed leaves small states weighing extraction against survival.

Geothermal offers a counterpoint, although the delivery record is mixed. Dominica’s 10 MW plant, reported to have entered commercial operation in August 2026, is expected to supply around half of the island’s electricity this year, some fifteen years after drilling began. Nevis is preparing to drill for a planned 30 MW plant, Grenada is at the exploration stage, and in St Vincent, the wells did not demonstrate sufficient permeability and the project has stalled. Geothermal can reduce dependence on imported fuel, but only where exploration risk, capital cost and long lead times can be managed. The choice facing small states is therefore not simply between extraction and inaction.

These developments sit awkwardly alongside the July 2025 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice, which found that a failure to protect the climate system, ‘including through fossil fuel production, fossil fuel consumption, the granting of fossil fuel exploration licences or the provision of fossil fuel subsidies’, may constitute an internationally wrongful act (para. 427). The wording is ‘may’ and the opinion is advisory, but it is striking that the Region’s own licensing decisions have attracted so little public response from regional bodies. I am not aware of any statement from CARICOM on the new licensing, which is perhaps understandable given the positions of member governments, but is itself telling.

​​​Manipulation, and the price of dependence

​Concern with geoengineering has been framed as ‘manipulation not mitigation’. UNEP’s 2025 expert review lends some support, concluding that current understanding does not support solar radiation modification as a viable climate response. Yet capital is moving ahead of governance: the start-up Stardust Solutions has raised some US$75 million and plans outdoor tests, and leading researchers have warned that proprietary technology and profit motives are directly at odds with the transparency needed.

Development assistance from OECD members fell by 23.1% in real terms in 2025, the largest annual contraction on record. Organisations under such pressure may be approached by large technology companies to undertake social and environmental monitoring. This has been characterised as greenwashing, but it is equally possible that the organisations act in good faith and see an opportunity to change the paradigm from within. I have not found published evidence of such partnerships in the Caribbean, and the point should be treated as precautionary rather than an established pattern. The wider context is not in doubt: Google’s emissions are 81% above their 2019 baseline. The dependency is structural, because those who fund the monitoring influence what is measured, and what is not.

​​​​​What can be done from the margins?

​The question participants at CANARI’s workshop did not resolve is how civil society, particularly in the Caribbean, can challenge developments that lie largely beyond the Region’s agency. There are some possibilities, none sufficient on its own. The first is law. The successful challenges in the United Kingdom and, to a degree, in Guyana turned on a narrow procedural point, the assessment of downstream emissions, and paragraph 427 of the ICJ’s Opinion now offers an international hook before licences are awarded. Litigation is slow and can be reversed, as the Guyana Court of Appeal’s May 2026 decision on the parent company guarantee shows, but that case is now heading to the Caribbean Court of Justice.

The second is diplomacy. The April 2026 conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels in Santa Marta brought together 57 countries. It produced no negotiated outcome, but it is one of the few spaces where producers and non-producers discuss a managed transition. The third concerns the terms on which civil society takes money: clear criteria on data ownership and freedom to publish would not remove the dependency, but would limit what it costs. A regional non-use position on solar geoengineering is a fourth.

None of this alters the underlying difficulty. If the threats are wicked in the sense described, they are embedded in decisions taken in Washington, in boardrooms and, increasingly, in Caribbean capitals. How should Caribbean civil society hold its own governments to account on extraction, without obstructing countries that have waited a long time for an economic break, whilst making common cause with those elsewhere who are resisting the same forces?​