From se­cur­ing fund­ing for cli­mate adap­ta­tion and mit­i­ga­tion to en­sur­ing a just tran­si­tion as economies un­der­go a green tran­si­tion, the Mul­ti­lat­er­al Agree­ments Unit at the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment has a long road ahead at this year’s Unit­ed Na­tions Con­fer­ence of the Par­ties (COP).

On Wednes­day, the min­istry, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme and Cli­mate An­a­lyt­ics Caribbean, host­ed T&T’s in­au­gur­al na­tion­al pre-COP Con­sul­ta­tion ahead of this year’s piv­otal cli­mate change talks, COP27, in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt. With near­ly 100 at­ten­dees com­pris­ing gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of civ­il so­ci­ety, en­vi­ron­men­tal in­sti­tu­tions, and pri­vate en­ter­pris­es, stake­hold­ers dis­cussed the coun­try’s pri­or­i­ties for COP27.

As a small is­land de­vel­op­ing State, Trinidad and To­ba­go is con­sid­ered a coun­try that is among the world’s most vul­ner­a­ble to se­vere cli­mate change im­pacts. Of par­tic­u­lar con­cern for this coun­try at COP27 will be the role of just tran­si­tion in im­ple­ment­ing de­ci­sions, mit­i­ga­tion, adap­ta­tion, cli­mate fi­nance, and loss and dam­age.

Ruean­na Haynes, Di­rec­tor of Cli­mate An­a­lyt­ics Caribbean, who has been as­sist­ing the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment with the Just Tran­si­tion Plan, not­ed the im­por­tance of ac­cel­er­at­ing Just Tran­si­tion to safe­guard so­ci­etal wel­fare and achieve cli­mate goals. “This na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tion has been im­per­a­tive to cre­at­ing an in­for­ma­tive plat­form to bring the crit­i­cal cli­mate is­sues af­fect­ing us as a small is­land de­vel­op­ing State to the fore,” Haynes added. “We look for­ward to tak­ing these is­sues to the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty at COP27 and work­ing to achieve de­ci­sions that re­dound to the ben­e­fit of Trinidad and To­ba­go and our vul­ner­a­ble re­gion.”

The dis­cus­sions were led by Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, al­so lead­ing T&T’s del­e­ga­tion at COP27 next month.

She said, “For Trinidad and To­ba­go, the de­ci­sions to be tak­en at this COP must help us fur­ther our na­tion­al im­ple­men­ta­tion ef­forts to tack­le the cli­mate cri­sis.”

Beck­les added that Trinidad and To­ba­go has ad­vanced its cli­mate agen­da re­cent­ly.

“We are ad­vanc­ing our na­tion­al ef­forts with tar­get­ed adap­ta­tion in­ter­ven­tions as well as ini­tia­tives such as in­creas­ing fines for il­le­gal tim­ber­ing and oil pol­lu­tion. These are com­ple­ment­ed by in­cen­tives for re­new­able en­er­gy ex­pan­sion and the con­struc­tion of the 112-megawatt so­lar pho­to­volta­ic sys­tem, which is set to be­gin next year. We are al­so in the process of fi­nal­is­ing a just tran­si­tion pol­i­cy that will en­sure that Trinidad and To­ba­go can ben­e­fit ful­ly from the in­evitable glob­al en­er­gy tran­si­tion whilst en­sur­ing that none of our cit­i­zens are left be­hind.”

In re­it­er­at­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to adapt­ing T&T to cli­mate change, the min­is­ter point­ed to a US$10 mil­lion grant from the Adap­ta­tion Fund from the De­vel­op­ment Bank of Latin Amer­i­ca for mul­ti­sec­toral adap­ta­tion mea­sures to cli­mate change in the South Oropouche Riv­er Basin for flood re­lief.

“Our dis­cus­sions to­day will put us in good stead to en­sure that the na­tion­al del­e­ga­tion to the Con­fer­ence can se­cure tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits to Trinidad and To­ba­go in line with na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties,” she added.

Beck­les will al­so be joined at COP27 by Kis­han Ku­mars­ingh, Head of the Mul­ti­lat­er­al En­vi­ron­men­tal Agree­ments at the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment.