Guadeloupe in the face of climate change: the stylised facts and macroeconomic consequences

Natural disasters have made up a large part of media headlines in recent years. These disasters are oftenmanifested in extreme weather events and are increasingly related to the phenomenon of global warming.There are many examples from all over the world. Among the most recent, in early July 2023, from Monday3rd to Thursday 6th, the average temperature record was broken four times on our planet, reaching the levelof 17.23°C. At the end of June 2023, the city of Penticton, in central British Columbia, recorded Canada'sall-time temperature record of 49.6 degrees Celsius. In this same city, during the month of December 2021,the maximum temperature was 22.5 degrees on Monday 2nd, whereas the previous absolute peak for thismonth was 11.2°C in 2012. In the USA, this winter warmth manifested itself in temperatures almost 20degrees above normal in Washington, Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota. In February 2020, temperaturesin Antarctica exceeded the 20°C barrier for the first time. Going back in time just a decade, similar observations have been made. Russia in 2010 was affected by "thestrongest heat wave in a thousand years," according to the Manager of the Russian meteorological services.In the same year, Pakistan experienced the worst floods in its history, causing several thousands of deathsand a major humanitarian crisis. In Central Europe, the floods of 2013 were described as historic with record-breaking water levels. In some cases, the increase in these large-scale phenomena calls their classificationcriterion into question. Indeed, since Typhoon "Haiyan" passed through the Philippines in 2013, scientistshave been seriously debating adding a sixth category to the Saffir-Simpson scale, which goes up to 5.According to the Saffir-Simpson scale, a cyclone reaches its highest level with sustained winds measured at252 km/h. However, the winds measured for Typhoon "Haiyan" reached 315 km/h, a difference of more than60 km/h. In developed countries and many emerging countries, the theoretical problems and practical decisions ofpublic policies to be implemented have undoubtedly occupied the thoughts and discussion forums ofresearchers and decision-makers. In recent months, large countries such as China, the United States, Russia,France, India and Pakistan have shown their limitations in coping with impressive and destructive floods,severe droughts and massive forest fires. You can therefore only imagine the risks and impacts these naturalshocks have on small island territories, which rank among the most vulnerable countries in the world. In acontext where many scientists have tried to assess the environmental and economic consequences of globalwarming for developed countries, it is therefore appropriate to increase knowledge for such territories wherethe potential risks and impacts are still unknown and potentially more dangerous. Given the variouscontroversies between researchers about the evidence of climate change and whether it is a series ofexceptional events or a long-term persistent trend, it seems difficult to prove that climate change exists, evenmore so in smaller territories. Using very long time series, in monthly data over the period January 1951 to December 2022, this articleproposes a discussion and empirical study of the issue of climate change in the Caribbean with the case ofGuadeloupe. First, we present the main elements of the literature on the consequences of climate change inthe Caribbean. Secondly, we apply various approaches from time series statistics and econometrics to carryout different modeling exercises based on changes in two key climate monitoring components: rainfall andair temperature.