Ryan Ba­choo

Re­port­ing from COP30, Brazil

Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs, and De­vel­op­ment, Kennedy Swarats­ingh, says am­bi­tion alone is not enough in the cli­mate fight, and the world must now look to­wards im­ple­men­ta­tion. Swarats­ingh made the com­ment as he de­liv­ered his na­tion­al state­ment at the Unit­ed Na­tions Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence in Belem, Brazil, yes­ter­day.

Swarats­ingh went straight from the air­port to the ple­nary hall, where he called for greater cli­mate fi­nance for Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS). He said, “Trinidad and To­ba­go recog­nis­es that am­bi­tion alone is not enough, and im­ple­men­ta­tion must now take cen­tre stage, as echoed by many par­ties here at COP. We must now move be­yond ne­go­ti­a­tions and de­ci­sions to re­al un­der­ground im­ple­men­ta­tion that de­liv­ers mea­sur­able re­sults, build re­silient com­mu­ni­ties, re­store ecosys­tems, and strength­en liveli­hood. To make this pos­si­ble, cli­mate fi­nance re­mains fun­da­men­tal. It is our hope that de­vel­oped coun­tries con­tin­ue to ho­n­our their com­mit­ments as a mat­ter of eq­ui­ty and glob­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

Swarats­ingh used the na­tion­al ad­dress at COP30 to de­liv­er a clear and ur­gent mes­sage: the cli­mate cri­sis is no longer a dis­tant threat but a dai­ly and es­ca­lat­ing re­al­i­ty for the coun­try. He said the na­tion con­tin­ues to face the in­creas­ing fre­quen­cy and in­ten­si­ty of ex­treme weath­er events, ris­ing sea lev­els and shift­ing rain­fall pat­terns, all of which threat­en peo­ple, ecosys­tems and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

“For Trinidad and To­ba­go, the cli­mate chal­lenge is not ab­stract,” he told del­e­gates. “It de­mands ur­gent and sus­tained glob­al ac­tion.”

Swarats­ingh said the Gov­ern­ment re­mains com­mit­ted to re­duc­ing green­house gas emis­sions in line with its na­tion­al­ly de­ter­mined con­tri­bu­tions. He out­lined sev­er­al mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures now un­der­way, in­clud­ing pro­mot­ing elec­tric ve­hi­cles with­in the pub­lic sec­tor and ex­pand­ing the use of so­lar wa­ter heaters in house­holds. Trinidad and To­ba­go is al­so work­ing to di­ver­si­fy its en­er­gy mix with clean­er sources such as green hy­dro­gen.

The min­is­ter added that the coun­try is ex­plor­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties with­in emerg­ing car­bon mar­kets as a way of mo­bil­is­ing in­vest­ments for low-car­bon de­vel­op­ment and sup­port­ing long-term de­car­bon­i­sa­tion ef­forts. But he cau­tioned that the tran­si­tion ahead must be fair and just, root­ed in eq­ui­ty, in­clu­sion and the prin­ci­ple of leav­ing no one be­hind.

To achieve this, Swarats­ingh said, the Gov­ern­ment is tak­ing con­crete steps to pro­tect work­ers and vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties as the econ­o­my be­gins shift­ing to­ward more sus­tain­able sec­tors. He not­ed that na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment must move in step with en­vi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship, cre­at­ing new eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties while safe­guard­ing those most ex­posed to cli­mate im­pacts.

He al­so made a strong ap­peal for deep­er in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion. Ac­cord­ing to the min­is­ter, de­liv­er­ing an ef­fec­tive glob­al re­sponse re­quires trust, eq­ui­ty and shared re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and Trinidad and To­ba­go will con­tin­ue to pur­sue part­ner­ships that can sup­port both mit­i­ga­tion and adap­ta­tion goals.

On adap­ta­tion, Swarats­ingh point­ed to on­go­ing work to strength­en na­tion­al re­silience. He said the coun­try is ad­vanc­ing the im­ple­men­ta­tion of its Na­tion­al Adap­ta­tion Plan, which em­beds cli­mate con­sid­er­a­tions across all ar­eas of na­tion­al plan­ning, in­clud­ing in­fra­struc­ture, en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment and so­cial pol­i­cy.

“Our peo­ple, our in­fra­struc­ture and our ecosys­tems de­pend on it,” he said, urg­ing coun­tries at COP30 to match their am­bi­tions with de­ci­sive ac­tion.