Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@guardian.co.tt

The Unit­ed Na­tions Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence is nev­er short of Trin­bag­o­ni­ans. They are in ne­go­ti­at­ing rooms, tech­ni­cal ar­eas of both ex­per­tise and ad­vis­ers, civ­il so­ci­ety mem­bers talk­ing on pan­els, en­vi­ron­men­tal ad­vo­cates protest­ing, sci­en­tists, aca­d­e­mics, and re­searchers. Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ties to COP date back to the gen­e­sis of the Unit­ed Na­tions Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change (UN­FC­CC). When the UN­FC­CC was adopt­ed in 1992, T&T signed on at the Rio Earth Sum­mit. Two years lat­er, this coun­try rat­i­fied the Con­ven­tion and be­came a for­mal par­ty. We sub­se­quent­ly at­tend­ed the first COP in 1995, play­ing an ac­tive role in the dis­cus­sions and sub­mit­ting a pro­pos­al for stronger emis­sions re­duc­tion.

Yet, for a coun­try that has pro­duced some of the finest ne­go­tia­tors and aca­d­e­mics, there is scep­ti­cism con­nect­ed to the par­tic­i­pa­tion and ben­e­fits of T&T be­ing at COP. One need not look fur­ther than so­cial me­dia. I sought to in­ter­ro­gate that thought this past week in An­talya, Türkiye, where COP31 is be­ing held.

Kis­han Ku­mars­ingh, T&T’s long­stand­ing ne­go­tia­tor for three decades who re­signed this year, told the Sun­day Guardian this coun­try has ex­er­cised “con­sid­er­able in­flu­ence” on the in­ter­na­tion­al cli­mate stage. He added, “The clear­est ex­am­ple of what COP has done for T&T is the US$10 mil­lion Adap­ta­tion Fund grant for the South Oropouche Riv­er Basin. The project sup­ports flood re­silience, wa­ter in­fra­struc­ture, wet­land re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and vul­ner­a­ble farm­ers and fish­ers. This is grant fi­nanc­ing for a na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty.”

He al­so point­ed to the €2.4 mil­lion Eu­ro­pean Union pro­gramme that sup­ports the coun­try’s Paris com­mit­ments, which has sup­port­ed so­lar in­stal­la­tions at in­sti­tu­tions in­clud­ing Spey­side High School, Bras­so Ve­na­do Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School and the Bras­so Seco Vil­lage Coun­cil Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, along­side main­te­nance train­ing.

How­ev­er, lead­ing Caribbean schol­ar and Lead Au­thor on the In­ter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change, Pro­fes­sor Preeya Mo­han warned that the gains that come out of COPs go be­yond mon­e­tary val­ue. She said, “T&T’s di­rect fi­nan­cial gains from three decades of COP par­tic­i­pa­tion have been min­i­mal. How­ev­er, the re­al eco­nom­ic val­ue isn’t about com­ing home with a cheque - it’s about pro­tect­ing our coun­try and re­gion from the cost of cli­mate dis­as­ters, un­lock­ing fu­ture cli­mate fi­nance, and mak­ing sure our ex­ports aren’t blind­sided by new in­ter­na­tion­al trade rules.”

She went fur­ther in say­ing, “De­spite all the in­ter­na­tion­al head­lines about bil­lions of dol­lars pledged for cli­mate ac­tion, on­ly a small frac­tion of that mon­ey has ever reached Trinidad and To­ba­go.” Mo­han ex­plained that T&T’s high-in­come clas­si­fi­ca­tion makes it dif­fi­cult to ac­cess grants and con­ces­sion­al fi­nanc­ing in­tend­ed for poor­er coun­tries.

She slammed “re­ac­tive pub­lic spend­ing”, ar­gu­ing the coun­try pours mil­lions of dol­lars in­to post-flood re­lief grants, cleanups, and emer­gency road re­pairs af­ter every ma­jor rain­fall event in­stead of proac­tive­ly fund­ing large-scale coastal de­fences, wa­ter­shed restora­tion, and mod­ern drainage net­works.

How­ev­er, Mar­cia Tin­to, who is a vet­er­an Cli­mate Change Ed­u­ca­tion and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Ad­vi­sor and the for­mer Na­tion­al ACE (Ac­tion for Cli­mate Em­pow­er­ment) Fo­cal Point, point­ed less to the fi­nan­cial gains and more about what in­ter­na­tion­al par­tic­i­pa­tion can do for the coun­try’s peo­ple and in­sti­tu­tions.

She stat­ed, “ACE recog­nis­es that ad­dress­ing cli­mate change re­quires more than gov­ern­ment poli­cies and in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments. It re­quires an in­formed and en­gaged so­ci­ety through ed­u­ca­tion, train­ing, pub­lic aware­ness, pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion, pub­lic ac­cess to in­for­ma­tion and in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion.”

She went fur­ther in stat­ing, “A train-the-train­er ap­proach can help en­sure that in­di­vid­u­als who par­tic­i­pate in in­ter­na­tion­al train­ing share their knowl­edge with col­leagues, ed­u­ca­tors, stu­dents and com­mu­ni­ties, ex­tend­ing the ben­e­fits of in­ter­na­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties across the coun­try.”

It’s a point Mo­han al­so im­pressed up­on, say­ing that glob­al sum­mits can on­ly help the coun­try if the coun­try it­self is will­ing to take steps to be­come more cli­mate-friend­ly. She said, “In the end, you get out what you put in - show­ing up to glob­al sum­mits on­ly pays off when backed by well-pre­pared tech­ni­cal teams and se­ri­ous im­ple­men­ta­tion back at home.”

It’s a point Ku­mars­ingh backed up, stat­ing, “My as­sess­ment is that there has been con­ti­nu­ity in mak­ing com­mit­ments and de­vel­op­ing poli­cies, but im­ple­men­ta­tion has not con­sis­tent­ly matched the ur­gency of the prob­lem.”

The three ex­perts have said that it isn’t sim­ply what COP can do for T&T but how the coun­try man­ages its poli­cies as the cir­cum­stances change with every UN Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence.

For Ku­mars­ingh, one of the great­est chal­lenges fac­ing this coun­try is en­sur­ing that the in­sti­tu­tion­al knowl­edge built up over decades of ne­go­ti­a­tions is not lost, while strength­en­ing the coun­try’s abil­i­ty to trans­late in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments in­to do­mes­tic ac­tion.

He cau­tioned that se­cur­ing in­ter­na­tion­al sup­port was on­ly part of the process, as gov­ern­ments must have the tech­ni­cal ca­pac­i­ty, in­sti­tu­tion­al arrange­ments and po­lit­i­cal will to turn those op­por­tu­ni­ties in­to mean­ing­ful projects.

He point­ed to the coun­try’s cli­mate com­mit­ments un­der the Paris Agree­ment, in­clud­ing its up­dat­ed tar­get of gen­er­at­ing 30 per cent of elec­tric­i­ty from re­new­able sources by 2030. How­ev­er, he warned that im­ple­men­ta­tion chal­lenges, in­clud­ing the shut­down of the Brechin Cas­tle So­lar Plant, could jeop­ar­dise the coun­try’s abil­i­ty to meet that tar­get.

Ku­mars­ingh al­so high­light­ed short­com­ings in the coun­try’s abil­i­ty to mea­sure and demon­strate progress, not­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s first Bi­en­ni­al Trans­paren­cy Re­port, sub­mit­ted to the Unit­ed Na­tions in De­cem­ber 2024, ac­knowl­edged that in­for­ma­tion need­ed to track progress to­wards its na­tion­al cli­mate com­mit­ments was un­avail­able for the re­port­ing pe­ri­od.

For him, this points to a need for stronger co­or­di­na­tion across gov­ern­ment min­istries and a per­ma­nent ne­go­ti­at­ing team ca­pa­ble of main­tain­ing con­ti­nu­ity as per­son­nel change.

Mo­han sim­i­lar­ly ar­gued that T&T must be­come more strate­gic in how it ap­proach­es the in­ter­na­tion­al cli­mate process, par­tic­u­lar­ly as glob­al cli­mate poli­cies in­creas­ing­ly in­flu­ence trade, in­vest­ment and the fu­ture of the en­er­gy sec­tor.

She said the coun­try must look be­yond its tra­di­tion­al de­pen­dence on oil and gas and po­si­tion it­self to ben­e­fit from emerg­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in low-car­bon in­dus­tries, in­clud­ing green hy­dro­gen, am­mo­nia and methanol.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, the ex­perts’ per­spec­tives sug­gest that the val­ue of COP par­tic­i­pa­tion can­not be mea­sured sole­ly by the num­ber of del­e­ga­tions at­tend­ing or agree­ments reached. It must al­so be as­sessed by the ex­tent to which in­ter­na­tion­al com­mit­ments trans­late in­to stronger in­sti­tu­tions, pro­tect­ed com­mu­ni­ties, eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties and mea­sur­able im­prove­ments in the lives of cit­i­zens.

Ku­mars­ingh end­ed by stat­ing, “So what do we have to show? We have fi­nanced projects, na­tion­al plans, tech­ni­cal ca­pac­i­ty, in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tion­ships and a record of con­tribut­ing to ma­jor ne­go­ti­a­tions to show for our par­tic­i­pa­tion. Those are re­al as­sets. How­ev­er, we should not de­fend every as­pect of our par­tic­i­pa­tion sim­ply be­cause the process is im­por­tant. The pub­lic should still ex­pect a clear ac­count of ex­pen­di­ture and re­sults.”