Kalain Ho­sein

Cli­mate Change Con­sul­tant

kalain.ho­sein@co­lum­bia.edu

In a sweep­ing demon­stra­tion of en­vi­ron­men­tal com­mit­ment, the Gov­ern­ment of T&T ap­proved four ma­jor ini­tia­tives last Thurs­day, po­si­tion­ing this oil and gas-pro­duc­ing na­tion as a leader in Caribbean cli­mate ac­tion and ma­rine con­ser­va­tion.

Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs, and De­vel­op­ment Kennedy Swarats­ingh, in a se­ries of rapid-fire an­nounce­ments, stat­ed that the coun­try has now signed a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing (MoU) to join the Ocean Co­or­di­na­tion Mech­a­nism, join­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al Coral Reef Ini­tia­tive (ICRI), ap­prov­ing the 2030 Na­tion­al Bio­di­ver­si­ty Tar­gets, and ap­proval of a new Na­tion­al Cli­mate Change Pol­i­cy that has to be laid in Par­lia­ment.

“To­day, the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, un­der the lead­er­ship of our ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter, con­tin­ues to demon­strate our com­mit­ment to the en­vi­ron­ment,” Min­is­ter Swarats­ingh stat­ed dur­ing the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing.

Crit­i­cal part­ner­ships

at a time of cri­sis

T&T’s mem­ber­ship in ICRI comes at a cru­cial time for the na­tion’s coral reefs, which ex­pe­ri­enced sig­nif­i­cant bleach­ing events in 2024. The In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs (IMA), work­ing along­side the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, will serve as the na­tion­al fo­cal point for this ini­tia­tive.

Dr An­jani Ganase, who has worked ex­ten­sive­ly on coral re­search, re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, and restora­tion in T&T’s wa­ters at the IMA, ex­plained that by join­ing this ini­tia­tive, the in­sti­tute will have bet­ter ca­pa­bil­i­ties to mon­i­tor, analyse, and re­store reefs through new equip­ment and tech­nol­o­gy.

Giv­en that the IMA is now ma­jor­i­ty grant-fund­ed, per­haps most im­por­tant­ly, mem­ber­ship in the IR­CI, ac­cord­ing to Dr Ganase, will bring greater vis­i­bil­i­ty and ac­cess to new fund­ing such as the Glob­al Fund for Coral Reefs.

The tim­ing is par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant, giv­en re­cent chal­lenges to coral reefs. “Since the 2024 bleach­ing, we have seen wide­spread die-off most­ly of our rare branch­ing Acro­p­o­ra spp. species and some of our brain coral species. These species are rare and crit­i­cal­ly en­dan­gered,” ex­plained Dr Ganase. “They re­quire spe­cial at­ten­tion for restora­tion, and we hope that be­ing a mem­ber of ICRI will pro­vide the sup­port.

How­ev­er, there are en­cour­ag­ing signs of re­silience. “While we have seen mass mor­tal­i­ty, on a pos­i­tive note, some sites ap­pear re­silient still, such as Boo­by Is­land in Char­lot­teville. We dis­cov­ered the sur­vival of a rare pil­lar coral dur­ing our spawn­ing dives this year,” Dr Ganase added.

Sim­i­lar­ly, the MoU to join the Ocean Co­or­di­na­tion Mech­a­nism will en­able T&T to tap in­to a re­gion­al pool of knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence, as well as col­lec­tive­ly ad­dress chal­lenges af­fect­ing coastal and ma­rine ecosys­tems and coastal com­mu­ni­ties.

Dr Ra­han­na Ju­man, the Deputy Di­rec­tor of Re­search at the IMA, al­so not­ed that work has al­ready be­gun on im­ple­ment­ing as­pects of this re­gion­al ap­proach.

In Oc­to­ber 2024, a Project Co­op­er­a­tion Agree­ment was signed with the Unit­ed Na­tions Of­fice for Project Ser­vices to de­vel­op a Ma­rine Spa­tial Plan for the Gulf of Paria. This plan will en­able in­sti­tu­tions such as the IMA, the Min­istry of Plan­ning, and the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land, and Fish­eries to make in­formed de­ci­sions on how to man­age the ma­rine area, in­clud­ing fish­eries and ma­rine traf­fic, there­by main­tain­ing a healthy en­vi­ron­ment.

Cli­mate Pol­i­cy Ad­vis­er at Cli­mate An­a­lyt­ics Caribbean, Car­lon Men­doza, ap­plaud­ed Thurs­day’s an­nounce­ments, stat­ing, “These de­vel­op­ments mean T&T is open­ing space for com­mu­ni­ties, sci­en­tists, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, and oth­er rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to shape cli­mate ac­tion to­geth­er, mak­ing de­ci­sions more trans­par­ent and ac­count­able to those who live with the im­pacts.”

New tar­gets, poli­cies

for a chang­ing cli­mate

The ap­proval of the 2030 Na­tion­al Bio­di­ver­si­ty Tar­gets pro­vides T&T with mea­sur­able goals for con­ser­va­tion ef­forts, build­ing on tar­gets and plans de­vel­oped in 2001 and 2018. As Plan­ning Min­is­ter Swarats­ingh not­ed, “these na­tion­al bio­di­ver­si­ty tar­gets will as­sist T&T to eval­u­ate whether na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion ac­tions have been ef­fec­tive, whilst al­so mon­i­tor­ing and mo­ti­vat­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions to work to­wards these agreed tar­gets”.

In re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia, the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Agency (EMA) said these tar­gets “pro­vide clear strate­gies and ac­tions to en­sure T&T con­tributes to its bio­di­ver­si­ty goals and ful­fils its in­ter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions”, as well as “pro­mote ecosys­tem man­age­ment for min­i­miza­tion of bio­di­ver­si­ty loss, restora­tion of de­grad­ed ecosys­tems, re­duc­tion of the rate of species ex­tinc­tion, con­trol of in­va­sive species, pol­lu­tion re­duc­tion and min­imise cli­mate change im­pacts on bio­di­ver­si­ty”.

Mean­while, the up­dat­ed Na­tion­al Cli­mate Change Pol­i­cy rep­re­sents the first com­pre­hen­sive re­vi­sion since 2011. Ac­cord­ing to Kis­han Ku­mars­ingh, man­ag­er of the Mul­ti­lat­er­al En­vi­ron­men­tal Agree­ments Unit at the Min­istry of Plan­ning, this new pol­i­cy in­cor­po­rates sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ments in in­ter­na­tion­al cli­mate gov­er­nance, par­tic­u­lar­ly since the 2015 Paris Agree­ment was adopt­ed and rat­i­fied in 2016.

Ku­mars­ingh said the pol­i­cy now ad­dress­es con­tem­po­rary is­sues in­clud­ing, “the lat­est sci­ence; the com­ple­men­tar­i­ty of ozone de­plet­ing sub­stances (The Ki­gali Amend­ment un­der the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col); dis­as­ter risks (un­der the Sendai Frame­work); just tran­si­tion of the work­force re­lat­ed to the en­er­gy tran­si­tion; hu­man rights; cli­mate jus­tice; car­bon pric­ing and car­bon trad­ing; en­hanced trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty”.

Why now?

The Bio­di­ver­si­ty Tar­gets, as well as the Na­tion­al Cli­mate Change Pol­i­cy, have not been up­dat­ed since 2018 and 2011, re­spec­tive­ly. So, why are these an­nounce­ments hap­pen­ing now?

While Guardian Me­dia reached out to for­mer plan­ning min­is­ter and cur­rent Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son, un­der whom the work on these poli­cies since 2022 would have oc­curred, as of late yes­ter­day, there has been no re­sponse.

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to Ku­mars­ingh, the de­ci­sion to de­lay the Cli­mate Change Pol­i­cy was par­tial­ly de­lib­er­ate, aimed at ful­ly align­ing lo­cal pol­i­cy with in­ter­na­tion­al ne­go­ti­a­tions with­in the cli­mate space. How­ev­er, it was al­so par­tial­ly out of the gov­ern­ment’s con­trol, as the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic had de­layed some of the glob­al talks.

Mean­while, ac­cord­ing to the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Agency (EMA) and the Min­istry of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs, and De­vel­op­ment, the 2030 Bio­di­ver­si­ty Tar­gets are aligned with the Kun­ming-Mon­tre­al Glob­al Bio­di­ver­si­ty Frame­work, which was on­ly adopt­ed at the Bio­di­ver­si­ty COP15 at the end of 2022.

How­ev­er, the ini­tial cab­i­net note for join­ing the ICRI was sub­mit­ted to the Gov­ern­ment in 2019, while the Na­tion­al Cli­mate Change Pol­i­cy was sub­mit­ted to the Cab­i­net in 2023. Ac­cord­ing to tech­nocrats at the EMA, IMA, and the Plan­ning Min­istry, when the Gov­ern­ment changed in April 2025, plans were re­sub­mit­ted to the new Cab­i­net in May and were ap­proved months lat­er.

Re­gard­less of the tim­ing, these new ini­tia­tives, tar­gets, and poli­cies are be­ing wide­ly laud­ed as wel­come and nec­es­sary.

Ruean­na Haynes, Cli­mate An­a­lyt­ics Caribbean Di­rec­tor and Head of Diplo­ma­cy at Cli­mate An­a­lyt­ics, re­marked, “As we pass the halfway mark in this most crit­i­cal decade for cli­mate ac­tion, it is en­cour­ag­ing to see small is­land de­vel­op­ing states like Trinidad and To­ba­go take strides to strength­en their pol­i­cy re­sponse to the cli­mate cri­sis.”

“As a coun­try that is high­ly vul­ner­a­ble to the im­pacts of cli­mate change, these are im­por­tant de­vel­op­ments for safe­guard­ing the lives and liveli­hoods of the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go and for demon­strat­ing the coun­try’s com­mit­ment to im­ple­ment­ing its in­ter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions un­der the Paris Agree­ment and oth­er mul­ti­lat­er­al en­vi­ron­men­tal frame­works,” Haynes added.

Dr Ra­han­na Ju­man of the IMA al­so added, “IMA is hope­ful that more ma­rine pro­tect­ed ar­eas would be es­tab­lished with ef­fec­tive man­age­ment mech­a­nisms so we can build cli­mate re­silience; more man­grove, sea­grass and coral reef re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion projects would be un­der­tak­en with ad­e­quate re­sourc­ing and fund­ing; the new fish­eries leg­is­la­tion would be en­act­ed to ad­dress de­plet­ed fish­eries re­sources, and ocean stew­ard­ship would be pro­mot­ed es­pe­cial­ly amongst youth.”

As the coun­try ad­vances in im­ple­ment­ing these ini­tia­tives, the fo­cus will be on trans­lat­ing pol­i­cy com­mit­ments in­to tan­gi­ble con­ser­va­tion and cli­mate re­silience out­comes.

The con­ver­gence of in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships, up­dat­ed poli­cies, and mea­sur­able tar­gets cre­ates a frame­work for ad­dress­ing the ur­gent en­vi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges fac­ing T&T, of­fer­ing hope for the pro­tec­tion of its unique bio­di­ver­si­ty and the well-be­ing of its cit­i­zens in an era of cli­mate change.