Waldemar Quiles says his agency has no funds for the committee, which has not met once in nine months. He admits he does not know how vacancies will be filled or who in the governor’s office is responsible for the process.
Three vacant seats and months without meetings have stalled the panel, despite its legal duty to oversee the implementation of the Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation and Resilience Plan.
Caribbean governments are struggling to track and manage ciguatera fish poisoning. As oceans warm and coral reefs degrade in the region, some scientists fear the illness will become more common.
Despite record heat in Puerto Rico as of August 2023, public schools remain unprepared for increasingly frequent hot days. School communities also grapple with ongoing power outages.
As record coral bleaching swept across the Caribbean over the past two years, scientists raced to save reefs with tools ranging from multivitamins and artificial intelligence to underwater speakers. But their efforts, they warn, remain underfunded — and increasingly overwhelmed by the scale of the coral crisis.
A historic coral bleaching event has swept across the Caribbean over the past two years, threatening the ecosystems that feed, protect, and sustain life across the region. This investigation, reported from six countries and territories, reveals the scale of the damage —and the human costs mounting beneath the surface.
As one of the regions most affected by the global climate crisis, local scientists are struggling with canceled research grants and funding cuts from federal agencies.
In the absence of long-term mitigation and adaptation projects from the government, many roads along Puerto Rico’s coastal strip could be vulnerable to rising sea levels and increased flooding.
