The largest regularly scheduled global event to review progress on actions related to climate change—the climate crisis—has convened in the city of Belém, Brazil, in the presence of some of the more vocally sceptical states—albeit through relatively low-level representation.
Nobody—whatever the public bluster—seems willing to risk being too far away from decision-making on, and the coordination of, efforts to combat what has been recognised by the world’s leading scientists as an existential challenge of our time.
Countries such as the United States, China, India, and more recently Argentina, have assigned low priority to the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30)—the annual high-level meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Yet, they are all already in, or en route to, Brazil’s “City of Mango Trees” along the banks of the Amazon River.
T&T’s Planning Minister Kennedy Swaratsingh is also due to arrive soon to lead a team of experts from within his ministry. This country’s role has in the past been among the more vibrant within Caricom, and some of our officials are highly regarded both regionally and internationally.
Any slippage in active, influential involvement by any of us in the Caribbean will undoubtedly send the wrong signals—not only to our regional and hemispheric partners but also to global benefactors who have accepted a role in assisting the more vulnerable states to come to terms with the symptoms of this phenomenon.
This has been particularly recognised by countries that know most about the potentially devastating effects of changing climate conditions. True, commitments of support have not always materialised. But there is general recognition of the requirement of the wealthy and powerful—the most complicit—to acknowledge a level of responsibility.
Whatever the geopolitical adventures and fantasies being pursued by some, the small island and low-lying coastal territories of our region cannot drift, geographically, away from where we are located. We cannot simply get up and retreat from any of this.
Grenadian engineer Simon Stiell serves as UN Climate Change Executive Secretary and provides proof of our region’s entrenched presence and engagement in the process. T&T scientist Prof John Agard shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize alongside other experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
T&T was also a founding member of the 39-member Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), and our own Annette des Iles occupied the chair between 1995 and 1997. In 2002, Caricom established the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC).
Additionally, whether we decide to re-engage the already settled question of an anthropogenic (man-made) contribution to what the world is currently witnessing—or delegate divine or other mystical responsibility—warnings of more intense and more frequent weather events are hardly dismissible. This is so, whatever politicians, powerbrokers, and amateur scientists with internet connections may contend.
And even if we concede that something—whatever its origins—is happening that is causing harm and elevating fear, there is no waving away, by social media post or political declaration, the fact that our small, highly exposed island and low-lying coastal states will have to find ways to cope, adapt, and mitigate much better than we have in the past.
The people of western Jamaica are, at this time, uninterested in what either the climate sceptics or the scientists have to say. There is also no imminent magical rescue by way of international political posturing. The current overriding concerns include recovery from grief, physical injury, infrastructural devastation, and a hope that in rebuilding, there will be a capacity to rebuild better.
Host President Lula da Silva has meanwhile described the Belém Conference as the “COP of truth” and has inserted strong elements of humanitarian concern. UN Secretary General António Guterres correspondingly insists the world has “never been better equipped to fight back” against climate change.
Such exclamations, however, lose their sting when both the wealthy and powerful, together with some of the poor and vulnerable, take their collective eyes off the climate challenge.
Stiell said yesterday that the 2015 Paris Agreement—a legally binding international treaty on climate change—“is delivering real progress, but we must accelerate in the Amazon.”
There also appears to be a need to accelerate decision-making and action in the major capitals of the world—as in the Caribbean Sea and everywhere else where the subject of climate change is being recognised and experienced as an urgent condition.
It is hoped that Belém will bring Lula’s “truth” and Guterres’ “fight” to the table in ways not previously witnessed. There is room for both hope and concern.
