Online premiere of Cuba's Life Task: Combatting Climate Change
Published: 31 January 2022
Climate change is among the world’s greatest challenges. As a small Caribbean island, Cuba is disproportionately affected by climate change through extreme weather events. Up to 10% of Cuban territory could be submerged by the end of the century, wiping out coastal towns, polluting water supplies, destroying agricultural lands, and forcing one million people to relocate. Finding solutions is now essential.
By Dr Helen Yaffe, School of Social and Political Sciences
Climate change is among the world’s greatest challenges. As a small Caribbean island, Cuba is disproportionately affected by climate change through extreme weather events. Up to 10% of Cuban territory could be submerged by the end of the century, wiping out coastal towns, polluting water supplies, destroying agricultural lands, and forcing one million people to relocate. Finding solutions is now essential.
Funded by the ESRC IAA from the University of Glasgow, the ‘Cuba’s Life TasK: Combatting Climate Change’, documentary explores Cuba’s long-term state plan to protect the population, environment and the economy from climate change, known as Tarea Vida (Life Task in English). The Cuban approach combines environmental science, natural solutions, and community participation in strategies for adaptation and mitigation. There are lessons here for the world.
The premiere screening of the documentary took place on the 1st November 2021 at the University of Glasgow, the first day of COP26, and was attended by Cuba’s Minister of Science, Technology and the Environment and the entire official Cuban delegation to COP26. A week later, it screened at Glasgow Film Theatre during the Peoples Summit which ran in Glasgow during COP26 and the event was addressed by Blanca Fernandez Garcia, from international relations in the same ministry. Later that month it screened in the Centre for Contemporary Acts cinema as part of the annual Havana Glasgow Film Festival.
Watch the full documentary on YouTube (click cc for subtitles in English, Spanish and Arabic – Turkish, French, Dutch and more languages to follow).
- For more information contact: helen.yaffe@glasgow.ac.uk or info@danifilms.co.uk.
- Find out more about Tarea Vida in this article ‘Cuba Shows How to Take Action on Climate Change’ published in Jacobin Mag.
First published: 31 January 2022