Haiti

THE REPUBLIC OF Haiti is located on the western part of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean. It has a land area of 10,714 sq. mi. (27,750 sq. km.), a population of 8,528,000 (2005 est.), and a population density of 758.1 people per sq. mi. (292.7 people per sq. km.). 20 percent of its land is arable, with a further 18 percent used for meadows and pasture. Haiti's farmland is divided into more than 500,000 farms, many of which are subsistence farms. Less than 4 percent of the country is still forested, a figure that is quickly declining because of the heavy demand for charcoal, and wood for construction.

Deforestation and flooding from global warming, and rising water levels have contributed to soil erosion, leading to major efforts to reduce the cutting down of trees. The Haitian Environmental Foundation has tried to replace charcoal cooking stoves with ones using briquettes of secondhand paper. U.S. aid workers are trying to replace 50,000 wood stoves with oil-fired burners each year.

Also badly affected by hurricanes, deforestation, and pollution, Haiti remains heavily underdeveloped, and, as a result, has one of the lowest rates of carbon dioxide emissions per capita in the world. Currently, Haiti ranks 181st, with 0.21 metric tons per person emitted in 2003, which is double the level achieved in 1990. Much of this rise has been accounted for by the rising level of prosperity among the middle class of the country, leading to increased use of private cars instead of reliance on the tap taps, the brightly colored pickup trucks still used for public transport in rural areas. There has also been a rise in the demand for [Page 490]electricity, much of it either for general household use or for air conditioning. Fossil fuels provide 68.9 percent of the electricity production in Haiti, and 31 percent comes from hydropower.

The Haitian government of the provisional president Joseph Nerette took part in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change signed in Rio de Janeiro in May 1992, and the government of René Pré val ratified the Vienna Convention in 2000. The provisional government of Boniface Alexandre accepted the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change on July 6, 2005, which took effect on October 4, 2005.