The Caribbean bears a disproportionate share of climate change’s human and economic consequences, accounting for 92% of climate-attributable deaths and 93% of estimated loss and damage across 37 SIDS. Yet the deepest cost is not only what the region has lost, but what repeated recovery prevents it from becoming. Reconstruction must do more than restore what existed before. It must build regional capacity, retain value to create the foundations for a different future.

Xi Jinping’s call for international cooperation on AI signals that a new geopolitical contest is taking shape. For the Caribbean and wider Global South, access to AI is not enough. Meaningful participation requires ownership, institutional authority and influence over the rules without being confined to choosing between competing Chinese and American technological systems.