Housing and Environment Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal has urged the more than 190 countries attending the high-level segment of the UN climate change Conference to strive for emission cuts that will limit global warming below the 1.5 degrees Celsius.
"The main challenge in Cancun will be to agree on a set of decisions that can initiate concrete action, while paving the way for the conclusion of negotiations on a comprehensive legally binding agreement as soon as possible thereafter," he said yesterday.
The issue of emission cuts is one of the most stubborn at the conference which concludes tomorrow after two weeks of negotiations. Many countries are divided over the future of the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 pact mandating emission reductions for industrial countries which expires in two years and which requires new post-2012 targets.
Moonilal told the high-level segment of the conference that the Cancun outcome will need to achieve immediate action on adaptation, reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries, technology transfer and the provision of financial resources. There must also be agreement on meaningful mitigation actions by all countries.
Developed countries, he said, bear the historical responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions and therefore need to provide the proactive leadership. He also called for establishing a process or processes for completing the unfinished work of the current negotiations, including the achievement of a full legally-binding agreement to be negotiated after Cancun.
"We need to ensure that our business gets completed," he said, adding that another area for positive outcome in Cancun was on the issue of carbon capture and storage as a mitigation technology. Noting that there is no quick fix to the global climate change problem, Moonilal said at the same time countries must realise and accept that the current imperative is absolutely clear.
"We have the incontrovertible responsibility as the guardians of this generation to ensure that we protect the future generations...We must fully commit now and pledge to leave our precious planet in a better state than that which we inherited," he said.
"And, my dear friends, the emphasis is on acting now," he told world leaders and environment ministers at the high-level segment of the conference. "Our Government is fully cognisant of the political realities facing the world, and the need for putting in place as soon as possible, practical approaches within this framework, without compromising the interests of vulnerable countries such as small island developing states.
"This will ensure measurable progress and minimise risks."
Monilal said Trinidad and Tobago is convinced that sufficient political will exists to achieve a positive outcome in Cancun and will work with like-minded states to ensure that Cancun does not result in a stalemate.