Jimmy Fletcher
CCREEE Executive Board
Chairman
James Fletcher is a former Minister for Public Service, Information, Broadcasting, Sustainable Development, Energy, Science and Technology in Saint Lucia. He served in that position from December 2011 to June 2016. Prior to this he served as a Permanent Secretary and a Cabinet Secretary in the Government of Saint Lucia, and a Director in the Secretariat of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States.
During his tenure as a government minister, he led Saint Lucia on an aggressive path toward energy sector modernization. This involved a comprehensive program of energy legislation reform, the establishment of an independent multi-sector regulator, new investments in utility scale renewable energy generation, a revival of geothermal exploration and the installation of rooftop solar PV on government buildings.
However, it is in the area of climate change diplomacy that James Fletcher is perhaps best known. He led the Caribbean’s negotiations leading up to and during COP21, culminating in the successful adoption and signing of the Paris Agreement. He was chosen by the COP21 President to be a member of a small, select group of ministerial negotiators, charged with the responsibility for achieving consensus among the countries on the more contentious elements of the Paris Agreement.
James Fletcher’s contribution to the Paris Agreement was highlighted in Profiles of Paris, a global initiative that recognized the men and women who played a pivotal role in the development and adoption of the historic Paris Agreement on climate change. He was recently selected by the Chevening Scholarship Program of the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office as one of its 35 Global Changemakers to commemorate the 35th Anniversary of the Chevening Scholarship Program, which has provided scholarships to over 50,000 global leaders from over 160 countries.
James Fletcher is the author of Governing in a Small Caribbean Island State, which is available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback formats. He also authored the “Regional Strategic Action Plan for Governance and Building Climate Resilience in the Water Sector in the Caribbean”.
Currently, James Fletcher manages his own consulting company, SOLORICON, which provides services in sustainable energy, climate change, SIDS sustainable development issues, information and communications technology, agriculture and rural development, and public policy development. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry from the University of Ottawa, Canada and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Crop Physiology from the University of Cambridge, England.