2018 swell in Cane Garden Bay
A 2018 swell washes over graves in Cane Garden Bay. Such flooding is likely to increase in frequency as sea levels rise due to climate change. (File photo: FREEMAN ROGERS)

Premier Dr. Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley is right to seek international funding to help the territory adapt to climate change.

But if he wants to be taken seriously abroad, he must first get the Virgin Islands’ own climate-change house in order.

Fortunately, this should not be terribly difficult. The VI, in fact, was a regional pioneer in establishing a sound legal framework to respond to climate change in the mid-2010s.

But since then, successive governments have failed to follow through with the straightforward local measures needed to implement that framework.

This disheartening trend must change straightaway.

As the premier and minister responsible for climate change and finance alike, Dr. Wheatley is well-positioned to right his predecessors’ neglect in this area.

As he has promised repeatedly, he should start with the Climate Change Trust Fund, which was created by groundbreaking 2015 legislation but remains inoperable.

The CCTF was envisioned as an independent body that would support projects that prevent damage from climate change — such as seawalls, mangrove restoration and sargassum barriers, to name just a few.

But the fund has never received a dime from the government despite a sound mechanism in place on paper to ensure its financial viability.

Since 2017, the government has been collecting a $10 environmental levy from non-cruise-ship tourists. The Environmental Protection and Tourism Improvement Fund Act 2017 requires 40 percent of that levy — which has now raised around $13 million — to be earmarked for activities related to climate change and environmental protection, with another 40 percent going toward tourist sites and tourism-related activities and 20 percent devoted to tourism marketing.

Leaders have previously indicated that the first 40 percent would go to the CCTF. But the money was never tapped as planned because of legislative bumbling and other issues — which we suspect include politicians’ reluctance to turn over any money to an independent board that they don’t control.

Indeed, some leaders have actively blocked the CCTF’s work. About two years after the inaugural board was appointed in 2017, for instance, then-premier Andrew Fahie dissolved it — a move the Commission of Inquiry later found to be unlawful.

Last year, Dr. Wheatley rightly reappointed the board and apologised for Mr. Fahie’s blunder, but the members haven’t had much to do in the continued absence of funding.

Leaders, meanwhile, say they are working to access the eco-levy money. To that end, the House of Assembly passed new legislation in February to plug gaps in the act that established the tax. But last week, Dr. Wheatley said HOA members now need to pass related regulations as well.

This step, he said, could come as early as this month.

We certainly hope so. Politicians’ excuses for the longstanding delays — including Dr. Wheatley’s attempt last week to blame the Finance Ministry that he oversees — are growing increasingly tired.

Without further delay, 40 percent of the eco-levy funds collected since 2017 should go directly to the CCTF so that it can get to work.

Other action is needed as well. For instance, the 2012 Climate Change Adaptation Policy was another pioneering step by the VI government, but a great majority of its goals — most of which were set for completion in two to four years — remain undone. Moreover, leaders never held the five-review that the policy requires.

Meanwhile, successive governments still haven’t delivered a desperately needed comprehensive environmental law that has been promised for more than 15 years.

Once Dr. Wheatley’s government addresses such issues at home, he will be much better positioned to source climate-change funding abroad. The CCTF, in fact, was created in large part to administer such funding, thereby assuring contributors that their money would be spent at the direction of an apolitical board of experts.

With a sound local framework already in place, major climate actions should be easy wins for Dr. Wheatley and the rest of his government.

They must get to it. A warming planet won’t wait.