A cuban farmer stands in his tobacco field. Photo by Guillaume Baviere/Flickr.

It would be tragic if the Trump administration’s economic assault on Cuba not only reimposed exploitative colonialism, but also erased the island nation’s little-known but world-leading efforts to address climate change.

On a recent solidarity tour of small co-operative and family-run agro-ecological farms in Cuba, our group of 17 Canadians and five Americans, led by Ron Berezan, farm manager of Powell River’s Blueberry Commons, arrived at Varadero airport in early February, expecting Caribbean heat.

Instead, we found the weather astonishingly similar to home. On February 3, a nearby weather station recorded a temperature of 0.1°C—Cuba’s coldest dawn ever recorded, and actually eight degrees chillier than Vancouver that same day. For the rest of the week, shivering locals greeted us with these words: “Buenos días. Mucho frío!”

The climate frontline

Cuba’s per-person CO2 emissions are only about half the global average. Despite this minimal footprint, it sits on the frontlines of climate change. Its mangrove coastlines are a “blue” carbon sink—one of the top three in the world, and a natural gift to humanity—but they are increasingly vulnerable. To make matters worse, Cuba is in the midst of a severe energy crisis driven by aging thermal electric plants, the economic downturn since the pandemic, and the growing difficulty of importing fuel for power generators, vehicles, and farm machinery. This strain has only intensified as the United States tightened a decades old economic embargo and, after its intervention in Venezuela, effectively choked off the flow of oil that Cuba has long relied on. This has deepened fuel shortages and pushed the already fragile grid toward collapse.

That made our bus tour around central Cuba an adventure in finding enough diesel to complete the itinerary. But complete it we did, with help from Cuban friends who had access to the unofficial market.

From small gritty plots with well-tended rows of vegetables, to more spacious wooded spreads with ponds, cattle, and meadows, we were warmly, and gratefully, welcomed everywhere. Besides the urgent problem of the darkened electricity grid, we heard story after story about how extreme weather is becoming the new normal—summer days too hot for field work, torrential rains, longer, harsher dry spells, and ferocious hurricanes, like Melissa last October, the third-most intense Atlantic cyclone on record.

Our new friends Virginia and César, having travelled 12 hours by bus from their farm in eastern Cuba to visit our group, described the agony of watching years of work vanish in a few hours. We heard about declining water tables due to drought, and increasing salt in the soil due to rising sea levels. Crops like guava shrivel from longer dry spells, while tomatoes drown in rains heavier than the elders have ever seen. One farmer, Abel González, showed us a greenhouse shredded by a tornado—the first he had ever experienced.

The challenges are relentless: unpredictable seasons that turn crop planning into a gamble, emerging insect pests, and a power grid so unstable that irrigation pumps often fail when they are needed most. Most urgently, rising sea levels threaten to submerge 10 percent of Cuba by the end of the century. According to University of Glasgow professor and Cuba expert Helen Yaffe, this could force one million people to relocate by century’s end, wiping out coastal towns, tourist beaches and vital agricultural lands.

This nightmarish scenario is only half the story. Indeed, Cuba is a place of stark contradictions. Some of the farms we visited were so lush, so lovingly tended, and offered such bountiful meals that we felt we were standing in a pocket of paradise. Our hosts were consistently generous and open-hearted. Cubans working in the tourism sector—one flush with US dollars—are better off than their compatriots.

On the other hand, most Cubans are living on the edge, especially those dependent on minuscule state wages and lacking access to foreign currency. They face prolonged daily blackouts, fuel shortages, stalled garbage collection, and a world-renowned medical system being pushed towards the precipice: surgeries cancelled, ambulances stranded.

And yet, the United Nations recognizes Cuba as a global model for how developing countries can tackle climate change. Even wealthy nations like Canada could learn from it.

Vgetable beds near Cárdenas, Cuba. Photo courtesy Bob and Angelika Hackett.

Tarea Vida: a blueprint for survival

Cuba’s official roadmap for climate crisis is named Tarea Vida (Life Task). Adopted in 2017, it is a long-term plan, outlining both immediate tasks, and goals stretching to the end of the century.

The philosophy behind the plan is straightforward: the state takes responsibility, policy is driven by science, natural solutions are prioritized, and community participation and mutual help is key. The government emphasizes ecosystem-based adaptation—using nature to protect nature.

Professor Yaffe suggests that Cuba’s socialist system acts as an advantage; the government can implement national strategies without having to negotiate with profit-seeking private companies. The flipside of this central planning, however, is restrictions on liberal-democratic human rights and freedoms that many norteamericanos took for granted before the rise of MAGA-style fascism.. Still, the air was not heavy with military or police presence, and political debate is sometimes robust. Many Cubans see their government as unresponsive, bureaucratic, long on speeches but short on actual service delivery.

At our host institution, the Christian Centre for Reflection and Dialogue (CCRD), located in the working-class town of Cárdenas, resident experts Jesús “Chucho” Iglesias and Juan Pérez raised valid concerns about Tarea Vida. They question whether the government is willing to share power and resources with local regions, many of which lack basic tools like computers, radios, or even desks. They point out that the program’s budget is skewed; while coastal protection understandably commands significant focus, agriculture receives only about three percent of the state budget. What’s more, the US blockade continues to throttle access to international financial aid, leaving the country without the capital needed for such an ambitious project. Some coastal folks push back against relocation, preferring current livelihoods to unfamiliar new homes.

Despite these limitations, Tarea Vida is widely seen as a necessary path to a survivable future. The plan builds on Cuba’s longstanding Civil Defense System, which combines technical expertise with ongoing public education and engagement in disaster preparedness, emergency response, and recovery. Its effectiveness is clear: Cuba experiences far lower hurricane death tolls than other Caribbean nations, has earned recognition from the UN, and can offer specially trained personnel to assist other countries—including the United States after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005 (the Bush administration ignored the offer).

Cuba’s progress on climate action is striking. Tree cover, once down to 12 percent, has rebounded to nearly 30 percent, and solar power is expanding rapidly. Climate education reaches widely—from school curricula to national television programs. Yet Cuban farmers don’t need TV to understand the stakes of climate change. They see and experience it every day in their fields and harvests.

Solar power is expanding rapidly in Cuba. The Caribbean nation connected 49 new solar arrays to its grid between 2025 and 2026, adding more than 1,000 megawatts of capacity with support from China. Photo courtesy Bob and Angelika Hackett.

The permaculture advantage

Strikingly, the philosophy of permaculture—which emphasizes caring for the land and people—meshes with Tarea Vida and Cuban culture generally.

Like permaculture, the climate blueprint emphasizes working with nature, not against it. The farms we visited were also hubs of communal solidarity. Farmers often share seeds, animals and knowledge, and many avoid middlemen entirely. At El Estadio, a small urban farm, or organoponico, in Sancti Spíritus, the cultivators encourage the neighbourhood to shop directly at their farm stand. Many farmers, even when not required by their lease contracts with the state, donate extra produce to local schools, hospitals, daycare and seniors’ centres.

At a small garden managed by Milvia, an energetic beekeeper and professor, neighbours take what they need and pay what they can. She told us she doesn’t need locks or security; the community looks after the garden. But of course, poverty and desperation take a toll; in some other farms, valuable equipment like water pumps is protected against theft by walls and even guards.

Effective adaptation requires “twofer” solutions—actions that serve multiple purposes at once. We saw this everywhere. A simple well might be connected to a windmill, solar panels, the grid, and a manual handle, ensuring that water keeps flowing regardless of the power situation. A spiny plant might be used as a natural fence to keep animals in, thieves out, and soil healthy.

Protecting mangroves reduces erosion and calms storms while simultaneously capturing carbon. With help from China, the rapid expansion of solar power—now up to 30 percent of their energy mix—is another terrific dual-purpose move: it reduces greenhouse gas emissions while helping the country survive its energy crisis. Everywhere in the countryside, far more panels glinted in the sun than during 2025’s tour—49 new solar parks have been established since then.

At Finca Caobas (Mahogany Farm), an unexpected sight—goats wandering through the forest. The combination of reforestation with goat herding controls erosion by stabilizing the soil, recycles nutrients, constitutes a windbreak, provides shade for plants that need it (like Cuba’s delicious coffee), captures carbon, and produces food directly. That isn’t just a “twofer” —it’s a “sixfer”!

A Canadian flag hangs at a small garden managed by Milvia. Photo courtesy Bob and Angelika Hackett.

Plans on paper, however, are nothing without the people who bring them to life. Time and again, we heard stories of remarkable courage. “I saw an informal garbage dump full of dead animals, and I imagined it as a garden,” Milvia told us. “People thought I was crazy at first.” Today, it is a mini-cornucopia producing honey and vegetables, with a Canadian flag hanging at the farm stand to welcome us.

Faced with obstacles, Cubans are remarkably resourceful. They famously keep gleaming antique American cars running for decades. They turn scrap metal into tools or art. One farmer proudly showed us a lawnmower he had stitched together from a discarded power pump and two spinning chains. Humour is another coping mechanism. At one farm with a water tower rendered inactive by lack of power for its pump, locals described is as a monument, “like the Eiffel Tower.”

Farmers are observing, learning, and adapting, shifting their planting schedules and swapping in new crops that can better survive the changing weather. But they are limited by a lack of resources, especially the US-imposed energy shortage.

What are Cuba’s climate action lessons for the world? Proactive long-term multi-sector planning, creativity and resilience, education, community solidarity, nature-based solutions, multi-purpose interventions. The Cuban people do not deserve Trump’s punishing policies.

This is where we can help. Canadian airlines were rather abrupt in axing their flights to Cuba, even after years of profitable trade to the island. Canadian government travel advisories were, arguably, too alarmist. Yet, as an act of defiance and solidarity, some Canadians are visiting anyway.

From the comfort of our own homes in the Global North, we can support Canadian civil society groups mobilizing humanitarian aid in solidarity with the Cuban people. In 2025, our tour group met a resilient, multi-generational family struggling to irrigate their small farm. We contributed what for us was a modest sum for well-digging equipment—and this year, we saw the new well proudly in use. Now, the effort has expanded: Berezan and his Cuban colleagues have launched SOLidarity, a fund supporting small-scale solar power systems to help farmers gain energy independence, irrigate crops, and operate essential tools.

Beyond direct aid, we can also push our government to do more. The $8 million pledged for humanitarian assistance is tiny compared with past disaster relief for Cuba and other countries. Canada has long shared a unique relationship with Cuba, especially within the Western Hemisphere. It’s time for Carney to match his rhetoric about middle powers standing up against great power bullying with concrete action. Cuba’s experience offers lessons—and warnings—for us all.

Robert Hackett is a British Columbia-based writer, retired professor of communication, and member of qathet Climate Alliance.

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