RYAN BA­CHOO

Lead Ed­i­tor—News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says Sau­di Ara­bia has of­fered to as­sist with T&T’s en­er­gy tran­si­tion thrust, as well as its eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

Fresh from his Mid­dle East trip, Dr Row­ley re­vealed yes­ter­day that Sau­di Ara­bia was al­so in­ter­est­ed in de­vel­op­ment fi­nance for tourism in T&T and the re­gion.

Re­it­er­at­ing the ef­fects cli­mate change was hav­ing on the coun­try, he said, “We do be­lieve that we are be­ing af­fect­ed by cli­mate change and we need help in pro­tect­ing our­selves. The Saud­is are will­ing to lis­ten to us with de­vel­op­ment fi­nanc­ing to deal with is­sues of cli­mate change.”

Dr Row­ley said as­sis­tance could in­clude so­lar pow­er in­fra­struc­ture, of which Sau­di Ara­bia is a ma­jor pro­duc­er.

“We are look­ing in that di­rec­tion,” he said.

He added that the na­tion must build a fu­ture that is not based on hy­dro­car­bons and pre­pare for the day when fos­sil fu­els are con­fined to his­to­ry.

Row­ley said that was why Sau­di Ara­bia was “go­ing full speed ahead” with huge in­vest­ments in tourism.

“We be­lieve that here in Trinidad and To­ba­go, es­pe­cial­ly in To­ba­go, we need to in­vest more in tourism be­cause it’s a more sus­tain­able in­dus­try but we need to do the in­vest­ment now so that when the dry­ing up (of hy­dro­car­bons) comes for what­ev­er rea­son, your pres­ence in the tourism en­vi­ron­ment would see you ac­cess­ing earn­ings.”

Row­ley said, hope­ful­ly, lo­cal en­tre­pre­neurs will be per­suad­ed to in­vest in tourism when fi­nanc­ing be­came avail­able.

He made the com­ments nine days ahead of the Unit­ed Na­tions Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence (COP28) in Dubai.

UN Glob­al Am­bas­sador for Cli­mate Change, Rac­quel Moses, told CNC3’s The Big In­ter­view on Sun­day that she was hop­ing Caribbean lead­ers make a strong case for cli­mate fi­nanc­ing in Dubai.

“I think the mes­sage from Cari­com needs to be we need to be clear about how much fund­ing we need. Free­ing up cli­mate fi­nance, es­pe­cial­ly grant fi­nance and con­ces­sion­al fund­ing is im­per­a­tive to meet­ing the goals we’ve set. I love the idea of them singing from the same hymn sheet,” Moses said

COP 28 takes place from No­vem­ber 30 to De­cem­ber 12.