T&T has de­posit­ed its in­stru­ment of rat­i­fi­ca­tion to the Paris Agree­ment on cli­mate change.

The pre­sen­ta­tion of the doc­u­ment at the Unit­ed Na­tions’ Head­quar­ters, New York on Feb­ru­ary 22 sig­nalled T&T's for­mal com­mit­ment to the re­duce green­house gas emis­sions un­der the Paris Agree­ment, be­com­ing part of the Na­tion­al­ly De­ter­mined Con­tri­bu­tion (NDC).

This com­mit­ment means T&T will have to re­duce cu­mu­la­tive green­house gas emis­sions by 15 per cent from in­dus­try, pow­er gen­er­a­tion and the trans­port sec­tor by 2030, from a busi­ness as usu­al base­line.

The Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment, as the Na­tion­al Fo­cal Point for the UN Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change and the Paris Agree­ment, will now be co­or­di­nat­ing the im­ple­men­ta­tion of oblig­a­tions un­der the Paris Agree­ment through its Mul­ti-Lat­er­al En­vi­ron­men­tal Agree­ments Unit (MEAU).

The Min­istry said via a re­lease that it has al­ready be­gun prepara­to­ry work in an­tic­i­pa­tion of rat­i­fi­ca­tion which in­cludes the de­vel­op­ment of an NDC Im­ple­men­ta­tion Plan, de­sign­ing a Mon­i­tor­ing, Re­port­ing and Ver­i­fi­ca­tion (MRV) sys­tem to track the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the NDC and by ex­ten­sion the Paris Agree­ment; ex­am­i­na­tion of the le­gal un­der­pin­nings of the MRV sys­tem with a view to main­stream­ing the process while ad­dress­ing any gaps; and prepa­ra­tion a fi­nan­cial in­vest­ment plan for the NDC, as im­ple­men­ta­tion will al­so be con­tin­gent on ex­ter­nal pro­vi­sion of fi­nance through bi­lat­er­al and mul­ti­lat­er­al donors and or­ga­ni­za­tions such as the Green Cli­mate Fund (GCF).

Of­fi­cials said emis­sions re­duc­tions are al­ready ac­cru­ing un­der the CNG fu­el-switch­ing pro­gramme of the CNGC of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny, as emis­sions re­duc­tions from the trans­porta­tion sec­tor, in­clud­ing through fu­el switch­ing forms part of the NDC.

"This rep­re­sents emis­sions re­duc­tions, which will be ef­fect­ed do­mes­ti­cal­ly and with­out ex­ter­nal fi­nanc­ing, as part of the NDC com­mit­ment." the Min­istry said.

The next stages will in­clude rolling out the NDC Im­ple­men­ta­tion Plan in con­sul­ta­tion and co­op­er­a­tion with the key stake­hold­ers in the iden­ti­fied sec­tors, in­clud­ing a test­ing of the mon­i­tor­ing, re­port­ing and ver­i­fi­ca­tion sys­tem.

The min­istry said that it would al­so be en­gag­ing ful­ly in the in­ter­na­tion­al ne­go­ti­a­tion process un­der the Unit­ed Na­tions Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change (UN­FC­CC) and the Paris Agree­ment as the tech­ni­cal rules and modal­i­ties for the glob­al im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Paris Agree­ment are be­ing ne­go­ti­at­ed and fi­nal­ized.