As climate change threatens coral reefs around the world, Latin America is enlisting an unlikely ally to try to preserve them: the insurance industry.

Reef policies provide quick payouts to clean and repair reefs after hurricane damage, limiting harm to coral and protecting biodiversity - as well as benefiting fishing communities that depend on it.

"How important is this from 0 to 10? I'd say 10," said Claudia Ruiz, who coordinates a reef rescue initiative at MAR Fund, which backs conservation of the Mesoamerican reef, the world's second largest after Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

In the Caribbean nation of Jamaica, however, conservation efforts are facing tough competition from growing demands to revive the coronavirus-slammed tourist economy.

On the island's north coast, mangrove clearing work has started for a new $550-million, 2,000-room resort, which backers say will create thousands of jobs.

Developers say they'll save what mangroves they can and replant more elsewhere to balance out the losses - but environmentalists charge Jamaica is undermining its climate aims by approving such mega-projects.

"Governments are often caught in a position of wanting to do what is right - but the rest of the population is agitating to see changes", which they often measure in concrete terms like jobs, noted Mark Bynoe of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre.

Across Latin America, just 2% of COVID-19 stimulus spending is going to projects that will boost a green economic recovery - well behind the global average of 19%, University of Oxford researchers say.

In large part that's because the pandemic has hit the region so hard, requiring more direct help to families. But too much money is going to shore up fossil fuels, ports, airports and other "environmentally negative" projects, according to the U.N. Environment Programme.

What would really drive action to protect the climate and nature - and cost countries nothing? Getting rid of hundreds of billions of dollars in agriculture, fishing and logging subsidies that drive forest loss and other unsustainable use of resources, economists say. 

Interested in emerging climate-smart fuels? Don't miss our new video explaining green hydrogen - and why it may be coming to a furnace or boiler near you this decade.

See you next week!

Laurie

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