Climate change is a huge issue. But do we take it at all seriously here in T&T?
"No," stated Dizzanne Billy, quite simply.
Dizzanne Billy is a young UWI graduate who is a passionate advocate for good environmental management. And T&T's apparent indifference to not only the climate, but to environmental health in general, disturbs her deeply.
Not only is climate change already happening, but we here in T&T, in many ways, are contributing to the bad effects of such change in our islands through our indifference and through our culture of pollution here, she believes. And citizens seem oblivious to, or ignorant of, the dangers.
Billy is one of 11 young people under 30 chosen from around the world to participate in a fully-funded fellowship at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
This year, the annual meeting, called COP21, takes place in Le Bourget, France from November 30 to December 11. And Billy is there now to help report on the conference as part of the Adopt-A-Negotiator Programme, which promotes and supports young writers, and which is part of the Global Campaign for Climate Action. Billy will be sending some blogs/reports to the T&T Guardian during her time in France at the COP21.
She is the first person from T&T–and from the Caribbean–to ever be a part of the Climate Tracker team since it began in 2009. The Climate Tracker initiative supports young climate activists who will publicly track their country's response to the climate change challenge, with a particular focus on the roles of their national governments.
The project so far has awarded more than 75 fellowships to individuals from 35 countries. Participants work by creating timely blogs and articles to help track governments' roles and educate the public on climate issues.
Billy has been involved in environmental issues since she was 14, when she and some friends revived the Environmental Club at their school, St Joseph's Convent in St Joseph. And later, while studying at UWI, she encountered the Caribbean Youth Environment Network (CYEN) advocacy group; she now leads the T&T chapter of CYEN. The CYEN, launched in 1993 in Montserrat, is a non-profit, civil society, charitable body to empower young people (15-29) to develop a conservation ethic, to help preserve our natural resources.
Billy grew up in Tunapuna, and earned a Bsc in Management Studies and International Relations in 2012, followed by an MSc in Global Studies in 2014. Fresh from university, her most recent job has been a nine-month stint at the embassy of Costa Rica.
Billy said in an interview on November 23 at the T&T Guardian head office in Chaguanas that she grew up in a "very outdoorsy" family who fostered in her a love for nature. Which is why T&T's current huge rate of pollution alarms her: she recalled that two years ago, T&T was ranked among the top carbon dioxide polluters per capita in the world–we ranked second, after Qatar (based on 2010 data from a UTT study discussed by UTT engineering lecturer Dr Donnie Boodlal at a 2013 energy conference in Port-of-Spain.
That data showed that T&T produces 53 million tonnes of greenhouse emissions annually, with 80 per cent coming from the petrochemical and power generation industries, and only six per cent coming from our transport sector.
Billy conceded it would be very challenging to change T&T's polluting habits. But we have to start somewhere–which she is doing through a range of activities, including talks at schools to educate youth on the environment. She implied that environmental awareness is so important, it should be a part of our school curricula, from primary level–yet most schools still don't have any standard educational modules geared to developing an environmental ethic.
"I don't think T&T is taking the convention (on the UN Framework on Climate Change) seriously," said Billy, "because each country is supposed to submit an 'intended nationally determined contribution'–which would be their contribution to reducing global emissions–and T&T's contribution was seriously lacking in many areas."
She thinks we are failing to put in place much-needed climate change policies, and ways to enforce them. And this is because our economy is so tethered to oil and gas companies that we're just not making the effort, she feels.
Other smart countries, however, are already planning for the future by investing in renewable energies, she observed.
Stay tuned for blog posts from Dizzanne Billy from France in the T&T Guardian.
What is COP21?
It is the 21st Conference of Parties (COP), or the Paris Climate Conference, an annual meeting of all countries which want to take action on climate change. This year it takes place in France from Monday, November 30 to Friday, December 11.
Every year, the conference reviews how countries are doing in fulfilling their promises to take action on climate change.
The political response to climate change began at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, where the Rio Convention included the adoption of the UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This convention set out an action plan to try to stabilise the human-caused dangerous greenhouse gases which are building up in the Earth's atmosphere, heating things up and causing a disruptive, dangerous rate of climate change, which is already melting parts of the icecaps, notably in Greenland, raising sea levels, and causing droughts elsewhere.
The first COP took place in Berlin in 1995. COP3 saw the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol; COP11 produced the Montreal Action Plan; and at COP17 in Durban, the Green Climate Fund was created. This year, COP21 will aim to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate aimed at keeping global warming below 2�C.
The conference will attract close to 50,000 participants including 25,000 official delegates from governments, the UN, NGOs and civil society. (www.cop21paris.org)