It's hot, isn't it? Like most Trinidadians, you might be thinking: "I don't remember it being this hot several years ago!" I've said this many a time these days. A wall of breathless, sticky heat hits me every morning.
I don't remember it being this hot when I was a child. When I was a child, you could almost set your watch by the midday rains during the rainy season. Now, the seasons bleed into each other, and you're never sure when the rainy season begins and the dry season lets off. A hurricane came dangerously close to us, despite our bragging that we're out of the hurricane belt. And what about the longest Petit Careme ever this year?
Climate change is real. There is scientific proof documenting it by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The unpredictable weather, the shifting of seasons, the extreme heatwaves and protracted forest fires, the erosion of coastlines, the increase of hurricanes–these are not accidents. There is clear and present danger, and as a small island, we are among the first in line to see the calamitous effects.
When President Obama came on the scene in 2008, it was a breath of fresh air for the United Nations climate negotiations. Finally, a US president that was in favour of working towards a climate deal. For the first time in years since the mess that was the Kyoto Protocol, UN climate negotiations could move forwards. The fragile but unprecedented progress that has been made is in no small way affected by the Obama's efforts.
But the important progress we have achieved and for which small islands have fought so long is now at stake by the election of Trump as the President of the United States.
As a lawyer having advised developing countries on United Nations climate negotiations, I have seen first-hand the time and effort and tension that go into pulling off such agreements and compromises between powerful countries on very contentious issues. It is an arduous, delicate and time-consuming process.
As we speak, UN climate negotiations are currently taking place in Marrakesh, Morocco, where negotiators from all over the world are painstakingly working out the implementation plan for the Paris Agreement last year.But Trump has already said he has plans to "re-negotiate" the Paris deal.
The week before the election, Trump announced that he would cancel all federal spending on climate change in order to save $100 billion over two terms of office–maths that did not add up and was not based on actual federal spending at all.
Furthermore, Trump said he would also cancel commitments to an international fund to assist poor developing countries reduce their carbon footprint and more crucially to adapt to climate impacts. This includes small islands like in the Caribbean.
The adaptation efforts would include financial and technical assistance with issues such as structural protection against and rebuilding after hurricanes, implementation of renewable energies, dealing with water shortages, amongst many other initiatives. Think of Hurricane Matthew in Haiti–initiatives to prevent that devastation.
Such a fund to increase donations to developed countries is part and parcel of the larger 2015 Paris Agreement. The US has pledged $3 billion over four years to the Green Climate Fund as a result of Obama's commitment to climate change.
It is crushing that this hard-earned progress will be stripped away by Trump.Trump has made it clear he wants to rely on the old standbys to make America great again. And what does that entail? More coal, more oil, more natural gas.
He wants to "re-negotiate" the Paris Agreement. An agreement ratified by 103 out of 197 Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).This Agreement sets ambitious targets to reduce emissions to keep global warming "well below" two degrees Celsius.
If you as a Trinidadian and Tobagonian are saying: "why should we care?" To this, let me tell you–this affects everyone. This affects the world.
We can see it on our own shores. The climate is changing. The daily weather patterns are changing. Take a moment to consider that. Do we want to live in a world where the very ground upon which we walk is so hot it causes blisters to be raised?
In Trinidad, we have been lucky for so long. We have cheap energy. We have forests. We have water. But as a result, we have become complacent. Other islands and Caricom nations have not been as lucky.
They have rallied and led the way on water conservation, renewable energy, agricultural development, and forest conservation. We however, have gorged ourselves upon our natural resources and have frittered away our chance at becoming a leader in self-sufficiency and sustainability. But there is still time. And in that time we need to prepare ourselves for a hotter world, with Trump at the helm.
�2 Caroline Mair-Toby is a lawyer with Mair and Company. She has advised on climate change, human rights and the environment at UN and Commonwealth levels.