Climate’s safety net challenge

A recent neighbourhood interaction led me back to a September 18 submission on this page related to the impact of climate change on the world of work, including some observations being made right here in the Caribbean.

I had shared a story involving a neighbourhood postal worker who was witnessed taking a rare breather in considerably intolerable heat one morning.

I was in the company of friend and colleague, climate change expert Steve Maximay, who suggested that whatever the precise meteorological outcomes – like the heat that day and torrential rainfall last Monday – countries all over the world must eventually address the issue of climate change and labour conditions.

Of course, this was no novel observation. It is a story some have been tracking for decades now – negotiating uninformed scepticism, outright denial, and slow recognition of key areas of vulnerability in our neck of the woods.

The International Labour Organization (ILO), for example, has been paying close attention to this question from the standpoint of the rights and entitlements of workers within the context of dramatically changing workplace environments.

In fact, less than a week before Steve’s astute observation along the hilly streets of St Joseph, the UN agency had published its World Social Protection Report 2024–26. It is the kind of report that lands in your inbox and, under the best of circumstances, you put it aside for another day. It appears to me that the bureaucrats in our government sector and activists within our labour movement have been similarly inclined.

To be fair though, the authors of the 2025 Budget statement offered several scenarios regarding climate change and energy policy, the challenges to food production and public infrastructure, and threats to biological diversity. Some of this was particularly insightful and thought-provoking though not necessarily attracting the kind of public attention the state experts in the field had intended.

This country also manages a robust social safety net unlike anything our Caribbean community or even some big neighbours extend. So, it is not that we are averse to extending “social protections” in the form of direct and indirect financial support, but that changes in the world of work may lead to a serious review.

What appears to be urgent and passing relatively unnoticed by most major stakeholders is the contention that the unfolding impacts of climate change can and will irreversibly change the nature of work in many sectors. Measures reflected in work contracts, occupational safety and health standards (OSH), and labour legislation are required to mitigate the outcomes.

Business and employers’ organisations and our labour unions need to pay greater attention.

The thing with the ILO report is its preoccupation with a notion of “universal social protection” being a key part of climate action. Now, the international public servants have a way with fancy terminologies to describe everyday phenomena. But what is really meant by this is the prioritising of specific social services to cushion the effects of identifiable challenges to workers across the class divides.

This approach has the distinct flavour of the international dialogue regarding “a just transition” to low-carbon economies. For T&T and some of our neighbours, including Guyana and Suriname, it has immediate implications for our working populations both inside and outside of our critical energy sectors.

Yes, what happens to the Petrotrin refinery is important, but within the accompanying dialogue needs to be found greater advocacy on “social protections” for workers in the face of an emerging national and planetary crisis.

This goes beyond wages and salaries, as important as they are, and gets to the bottom of a phenomenon currently being witnessed even in bigger wealthier environments.

The recalibration of economies to reflect both the impacts of global climate change and the actions taken to address them are now high on the agendas of numerous nations – even in the face of the urgency of growing military and other conflict which, in some instances, is not unrelated to diminishing natural resources.

Countries such as ours that are small, vulnerable to global economic shocks, and with limited options for adapting to different developmental paradigms should be urgently engaging this challenge. That our own T&T economy appears to be contracting and will continue to contract requires much more than political manoeuvring to maintain public goodwill or to combat contesting claims.

This calls for a unified national approach that’s deliberately blind to real (or rather illusory) differences in developmental philosophy. Our social safety net, which is becoming increasingly strained and costly, will need to evolve in both scale and scope.

Money, culture, and budgets

Coming as it does mere days after delivery of the 2024/2025 national budget statement on Monday, and its rigorous dissection even minutes following its introduction, today’s contribution to this space runs the risk of relative redundancy.

Yet, it should go without saying that until the point is accepted that the future of our country resides more durably in deployment of the creative imagination than in expendable subterranean resources, there is no risk of over-emphasis.

Now, don’t get me wrong. This is not designed to fuel any new or renewed frenzy around state funding of “culture” inspired by any money-inspired formulation of “cultural policy” and what I consider to be associated threats to unfettered artistic expression.

We have had examples over the years of state investment in selected activities and the negative and positive impacts that have flowed, including effective state capture of tangible and intangible organisational assets.

I am, for example, more than a little uncomfortable with the proposed pathway being designed to elevate the work of Pan Trinbago – a process no doubt paved with good and noble intentions.

This sort of thing has been interrogated in other contexts elsewhere, sufficient to inspire, at minimum, a level of wholesome scepticism and informed discussion by creatives and their supporters. We need to be much more clinical about the ways we harness this abundance of cultural wealth in T&T.

Points such as these are explored in an important 2007 study by Arjo Klamer & Lyudmila Petrova entitled Financing the Arts: The Consequences of Interaction among Artists, Financial Support, and Creativity Motivation.

Sure, this research considers a largely developed country context, but in it, the authors critically analyse “the nature and rationales of various modes of financing the arts” dividing these modes into the various sources of funding including the state and “the market” – the latter I consider to be of considerable if not supreme, unfolding importance in our case.

Much of this coincides with my view that for starters, the state - as important are its assets held in trust on our part - should not stand at the centre of framing a way forward when it comes to the discrete elements of the cultural sector. It should await its turn in the queue of influence and power, intervening only when strategically required.

In any event, numerous free individual agents carve their own way forward with minimum fuss. Coercive “local content” broadcast policy, (an anachronism in today’s virtual space) plays no role in the achievements of most of our leading musicians. In any event, what “airplay” are people talking about?

Think also of our visual artists creating and creating – generating artistic value and scanning our realities in ways in which the mathematicians and economists are typically incompetent.

This is not to say that dollars and cents are irrelevant. I started all this by referencing Monday’s budget presentation which has to do with sowing and reaping the benefits of indigenous resources. But there is little to suggest that the creative sector is, in the official discourses, moving more to the centre of assessment of our collective wealth.

For example, the point has already been made about the multi-faceted contribution of the steelpan – as a model of social organisation, expression of musical excellence, and as under-valued economic resource.

This should not mean action to get everyone to play the pan. I know young players whose appreciation for the musical value of the instrument came via everything between the guitar and piano. But that’s an aside. Another question.

There are also poets, authors, dancers, and filmmakers converting their creative imaginations to immeasurable “value” with implications for where our country stands in the global scheme of things. Consider, for example, that Shakespeare was assessed some years ago to be among the UK’s most successful cultural exports.

Okay, so we can’t expect the bean counters at the Ministry of Finance to consider these things, but I think our numerous groupings should become more vocal on questions not only of financial flows through state expenditure, but ways our cultural products, and the environment in which they are created, can add to collective wealth and value.

Their positions on such things must go beyond what Klamer & Petrova describe as “the immaterial consequences of economic processes” and consider the actual impact of the interplay involving the “financing of cultural activity, the creative process, and cultural values.”

Things to think about when next the balance sheets are prepared, and important accounting columns and calculations are again absent.

Lessons from Kangaroo Jack

Let me confess that during the pandemic lockdown regular Facebook posts from a Zoological Officer of the Emperor Valley Zoo helped me (and I am sure thousands more) maintain a relatively high level of emotional stability.

I am not going to call the young officer’s name (which you may already know) since it would be unfair to drag her further into a discussion on the latest, absurd instance in which our well-documented “culture of secrecy” has been on stark public display.

The fact is that during the pandemic lockdown the Emperor Valley Zoo decided to open its gates virtually to us through a series of delightful social media dispatches exhibiting a high level of attention, compassion, and rapport between a competent zookeeper and the animals in her care.

Then, sometime later, came Jack the kangaroo, public speculation surrounding his health through media reporting and, latterly, the diligent work of Newsday reporter, Narissa Fraser.

Here, unlike so many other news stories with grand revelations, we aren’t dealing with developments that emerged from the dark, sinister shadows of secret underworld transactions. Concern was already in the public domain, and without visible objection from anyone, that something was wrong with Kangaroo Jack.

Back in March, the agriculture minister even launched an investigation into the condition of the animal.

If anything, the ongoing public saga of Kangaroo Jack offered us an insight into our humane instincts as people – whatever the justifiable ambivalence over zoos.

This was no ordinary zoo story. For example, I cannot say that too many visitors can name any of the four other kangaroos at the zoo that reached there about three years before Jack.

Maybe, maybe not. But I remember visiting with young Reign from Guyana in 2022 and we experimented with makeup names for all the animals.

I also don’t think it should be incumbent on any zoo to issue death announcements upon the passing of any snake, monkey, manicou, or turtle (though it has happened in the past!). But then there was Jack – the subject of curious social and mainstream media attention.

Sure, there are perhaps more important things to gripe about, but I think this case points us in the direction of an overall malaise that plagues our country, and for certain, the rest of our region. This isn’t just about a kangaroo.

So persistent has been the ready resort to secrecy in official circles, that some of us in the field of journalism have fixed activist eyes on the requirements of freer access to information held in trust by public agencies.

To locate the role of the Zoological Society in all this we may choose to look at the 2018 judgment of Justice Frank Seepersad in which it is concluded that “the ZSTT (Zoological Society) is a public body within the meaning of the (Freedom of Information) Act ...”

The Zoo is owned, operated, and managed by the Zoological Society of T&T (ZSTT) –incorporated by statute in 1952 and reportable to the Statutory Authorities Service Commission. A little over $5 million was allocated to ZSTT for 2024 by the state via the Ministry of Agriculture, Land, and Fisheries.

The ZSTT is also under the purview of the Office of Procurement Regulation and its annual administrative reports are required to be tabled in parliament.

It thus appears that in many respects, the Society has transparency obligations under the law. At the very least there is general public accountability even when, let’s say, the condition of an animal has captured our imaginations.

There are, of course, procedural issues associated with the FOI Act that can extend beyond mere questioning by an enterprising reporter on the health status of an animal.

But should we really have to go this far? A reporter asked a simple question: Whatever happened to Kangaroo Jack? Phone calls remained unanswered. People could not be located.

It is appalling that the Society should have disclosed what appear to be straightforward, apparently non-controversial medical facts about the demise of Kangaroo Jack only after being pressed to do so by an enterprising reporter and in the face of accompanying public concern.

It is sad that so many of us are shrugging this off as another mere example of our “culture of secrecy” - noted by researchers on a Media Institute of the Caribbean (MIC) study as being pervasive throughout our region.

Until we aggressively address this through all available means, including employment of enlightened political will, Kangaroo Jack can easily become Citizen Jill.

Climate’s labour costs

It took friend and colleague, climate change guru Steve Maximay, to remind me last week of an overdue commitment to address the impact of changing climatic conditions on the world of work in the Caribbean. I am coming to what led to this shortly. Stay with me.

This is no new area of global concern. The International Labour Organization (ILO) and others have been at this for many years now.

In 2004/2005 (20 years ago!) I worked with the Association of Caribbean MediaWorkers (ACM) and what was then the Caricom Mainstreaming Adaptation to Climate Change (MACC) project on a climate change handbook for Caribbean journalists - arguably the first of its kind anywhere. Pacific media colleagues even wanted one of their own! Credit T&T communication guy, Tony Deyal, for spawning the idea.

Even then, the subject of the changing world of work was coming up as experts concluded that “adaptation” to inevitable change had to be at the forefront of the numerous survival strategies of small vulnerable countries.

The ILO has also looked, in successive published studies, at the direct and indirect consequences of a phenomenon whose human contributions have been almost universally recognised by the scientific community.

In a follow-up to our first publication, with support from UNESCO in 2020, Maximay, Dr Dale Rankine and I co-authored ‘Reporting the Climate Crisis, A handbook for Caribbean journalists.’ Some readers thought “crisis” was an inappropriate descriptor and perhaps remain entitled to their uninformed view.

Authors of the UK Guardian’s Style Guide were however clear, and in 2019 mandated internal employment of “climate crisis” and “climate emergency” as preferred terms to describe the unfolding situation.

Now, back to Steve and our journey through hilly St Joseph last week. We came across the diligent postal worker who services my area (and who deserves a special award for her dedication). There she was - seated on a culvert, mid-morning, with her head down, perspiration dotting the hot pitch. “Heat,” she muttered. “Heat.” She declined our offer of a lift.

“You know,” Steve suggested, “this is why climate change and how people work must be urgently put on the agenda. Things will get worse.” We both understood the symbolism of that simple, brief encounter.

In April there was an ILO press release which described climate change as offering up a “cocktail” of serious health hazards with the potential to affect up to 70 percent of the world’s working population.

It might well be that Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM), the National Trade Union Centre (NATUC), and non-aligned member unions have found time in their busy schedules to discuss this matter. But I have not seen the press releases. Nobody has been making the media rounds. Labour Day came and went and the only heat I heard about was a threat of rhetorical “fire” in Fyzabad.

Last year, almost to the day, and hosted by Dr André Vincent Henry, Director of the Cipriani College of Labour and Co-operative Studies, Caribbean labour leaders and activists looked at these precise issues at a Caribbean World of Work Forum. Whatever happened to the agenda set there?

Revised labour standards are clearly needed as a buffer against the onslaught of uneven climate impacts across regions, countries, and sectors. Even accompanying measures to address this come with costly price tags.

The imperative of a “just transition” to low-carbon realities also has vast implications for workers. Global dynamics affected by the drive to achieve emission targets are umbilically linked to the future of workers and the communities in which they live and perform their duties.

In our region, there are already recognisable impacts on the incidence of heat-related and respiratory illnesses – developments hopefully being recorded and researched by public health agencies in T&T. A few months ago, I was a part of a journalistic exercise which looked at the rising incidence of climate-related illnesses among the elderly of Barbados.

In that instance, we noted a sad paucity of official data but abundant anecdotal information on growing hospital admissions for the treatment of patients experiencing higher temperatures and protracted exposure to the polluting effects of Saharan Dust.

There are also growing concerns related to disease-carrying vectors that thrive on the combined effects of unseasonal and more intense weather events. Have you wondered about the intensity of this year’s dengue outbreak and associated economic costs including those occasioned by workplace disruptions?

How are our unions contributing to such a discussion? Should they not be leading the way? Where are they? Where is this frontline of defence against climate’s rising labour costs?

 

Are we there yet?

Current events have driven me back to a memorable rant of August 2011 when I questioned the legitimacy (if not unconstitutional nature) of “a state of emergency to address the shortcomings of the police, judiciary, executive, and the people of Trinidad and Tobago” (my words).

A solution to the mounting violence and crime, I surmised, was thought to have been found through a momentary, sweeping suspension of a wide swathe of rights – a measure originally meant as a last and specific resort when all else has failed; so important being the value of durable human rights.

Back then came my sombre testimony that “the boots and guns are now in charge – a virtual takeover of the state by the state.” At the end of it, there were over 8,000 detainees and a pitiable number of convictions. Then, back to normal, and where we are now.

We kept hearing partisans present their respective, predictable cases. There were, apparently, political points to be earned.

By then, we had already been through the turbulent 1930s, the Black Power Revolution of 1970/71, and the hugely controversial state of public emergency “in the city of Port of Spain” in 1995 to force the late House Speaker Occah Seapaul from office.

In May 2021, the pandemic grew in domestic impact alongside a global COVID-19 emergency and an SoE was declared.

There remain those who for a variety of reasons (valid and invalid) thought it all irrational overkill and not a chance at erring on the side of extreme caution.

But here we are … one more time … and the calls have intensified, recently and ironically, by those whose legitimacy enjoys greatest succour from inalienable rights inclusive of religious belief and observance.

Government boots, you see, are not expected to be heard outside such doors – nor in the vicinity of others laying claim to exclusive, chronic, discriminatory victimhood.

So, yes, shut the doors and close those gates – but only if I am the one being kept safe inside. So mistaken are some that prohibitions serve only to raise the drawbridges to keep others out while many remain locked in.

There is sufficient precedent to support the view that draconian laws and the removal/suspension of rights offer limited, momentary reprieves, and little more. This is unless we conclude that rights and freedoms come at too high a price and decide to dump them indefinitely.

In Jamaica these days there are questions regarding the sustainability of relative communal peace through a succession of SoEs.

PM Andrew Holness was even moved to invoke the “rights of victims” as a presumptive trump card against the suggestion by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the country’s repeated reliance on SoEs to address criminal behaviour does not appear to meet standards set by the American Convention.

The Inter-American System has insisted that “to adopt such measures, States need to justify their reasonableness, necessity, and proportionality in the context of the emergency. Additionally, indispensable judicial guarantees must be maintained in force in all circumstances.” (Think T&T 2011)

For too many, an insistence on meeting such standards reflects blindness, as Holness has suggested, to harsh realities on the ground. This assertion is however meant to effectively mute dissenting voices which, in the case of Jamaica, includes the political opposition and human rights groups.

Like here, many publicly assign to SoEs the collateral “benefit” of extra-judicial executions. Tell me you have not heard it said that “we just need to kill ‘them’ off” as a solution to the growth in murderous violence.

There were even Trinis openly hoping T&T would follow the path of former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte whose “war on drugs” led to thousands of deaths at police hands.

To me, this is what many people mean by their support for the suspension of rights in an environment of fear – a situation not always based on actual levels of risk or threat.

It is meanwhile true that under-performance in the areas of community action, policing, the administration of justice, media performance, and politics is abundantly evident. If indeed so, in what ways does a constitutionally provisioned state of national emergency resolve this condition?

In El Salvador they thought they had found the key. In the Philippines, “achievements” were brutally pyrrhic. In South Africa, SoEs were used as effective tools of brutal suppression. The Brazilians have been wrestling with this approach for years.

The question for us is whether we have reached a point where, at recognisable risk, we are prepared to relinquish the freedoms we cherish, to benefit from what have been widely acknowledged to be questionable short-term reliefs.

Have we really reached there yet?

Delightful CPL confusion

From Day One, 11 years ago, I have been paying attention to the unfurling of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) and its relevance to the regional integration project and the instincts that drive Caribbean people to a unique sense of self.

This is particularly interesting now that in T&T we are undergoing yet another wave of insanity associated with what people are describing as the outward manifestation of “patriotism” – sentiments often cosmetic, fascistic in nature, and driven by jingoistic, exclusionary emotions.

A flag at every home. Coat of arms. National watchwords. Everywhere, including at state functions, the accompanying embrace of theocratic creed (invariably “Christian” in nature). All the cosmetic jazz required to lay claim to some form of supposed independent citizenship and belonging.

The CPL raises such issues in different ways. There is, however, a mismatch between the design of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) agenda, the makeup of the hugely successful CPL, and support for the West Indies cricket team.

This space has also time and again made the distinction between “West Indies cricket” and “cricket in the West Indies” – a formulation that has seemingly eluded the thoughts of people who believe cricket belongs, as a standing agenda item, on the schedule for Caricom investment and discussion.

Explain this, I have often wondered aloud, to the agitating masses of Haiti, identity-conflicted Bahamas, football loving Suriname, and the people of Belize who rely on the Central American Integration System (SICA) for support of the kind not always accessed via Caricom.

In Curaçao, which joined as an Associate Member in July, there is most likely not a single proper cricket pitch. Tell me who there knows where to find “extra cover?”

The CPL meanwhile took us into the kind of terrain in 2013 we had not quite known before. Not even the transformative Stanford era brought us this.

As far as I know, the CPL is the only brand of regularly scheduled franchise cricket, featuring internationally mixed teams, whose bases of operation are countries and not counties or cities or regions within states.

The ensuing confusion here means that we have not always separated the franchises from the countries in which they are based. So, at cricket grounds all over the region, national flags are often seen at the stadia alongside branded team standards and buntings.

In one memorable instance, the T&T national flag was stomped upon by fans of another country who felt strongly about a loss. There were early unsuccessful calls not to associate national symbols (the coat of arms???) with the various teams to minimise the potential for such confusion.

Yet, people have been arguing, basically, that the teams are commercial products being offered by the respective countries. Maybe because we are so used to repackaging, re-assembling and labeling non-indigenous products as our own, such logic sticks.

Defiantly, I have at various times expressed support for the “T&T Amazon Warriors” (when T&T cricketers were more regularly on the team), the Jamaica Tallawahs (which no longer exists though Jamaica does), and the “Zouks” of Saint Lucia which is now the Saint Lucia Kings, captained by South African batsman, Faf du Plessis.

I asked my Lucian pal Peter where Faf goes for his Saturday pigtail bouillon, and he couldn’t answer me. Denis is also yet to say whether Shai Hope prefers Guyanese pepperpot in Kitty or what you can get in Cummingsburg.

Don’t talk about Joshua Little of TKR. Does he have an opinion on Sauce Doubles in Curepe as opposed to Debe saheena? In any event, where is “Trinbago”? No such country exists within the UN system.

Yet, the flags flew when Tim Seifert (New Zealand) was caught by Kyle Mayers (Barbados) off the bowling of Odean Smith (Jamaica) for the St Kitts and Nevis “Patriots” on Sunday. St Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Terrance Drew and the Minister of Sports Samal Duggins even flew to Antigua to back the team last week.

As silly as all of this seems, I still think that the CPL has done more for popular support for the game of cricket in recent years than Cricket West Indies has achieved in decades. In the process, there have been creative tensions between what we deemed to be “national” in the past and what presents itself as home-spun now.

In a strange way, we ought to have already been acquainted with all this. The “West Indies” flag and accompanying “anthem” are contrived inventions intended to generate amorphous “nationalistic” support. Beyond a Boundary was written in 1963. Today, there is no cricket bat in the Caricom flag.

 

None of the above

So, I decided to provocatively introduce the idea of a “None of the Above” (NOTA) option on national election ballots during a recent media workshop hosted by the T&T Publishers and Broadcasters Association on the ethical coverage of elections. I heard gasps in the room.

Bear in mind that such a choice exists, bearing different labels in various countries, states, and regions. In the UK there have been fringe parties registered on the ballot solely to express the general sentiment. Imagine a NOTA party in your constituency! Can they win?

Left to my own mischievous devices, I would have also continued two weeks ago to argue that, perhaps, there should also be the opportunity to vote “Against” the candidate/political party you would NOT wish to occupy office. In that event, the party would have a vote deducted from their tally. This is thus no mere “wasted” vote.

If nothing else, these electoral opportunities would have the potential to honestly capture prevailing attitudes toward what is being offered by the various competing parties and, importantly, attract electors who would not have otherwise participated.

Hear me out. Though we have had voter turnouts of over 60 percent since 1981 (except for the COVID-affected 58 percent turnout of 2020), simple arithmetic would show that the parties elected to office habitually represent less than half of the registered electorate. It’s much worse during local government elections. But that’s almost an entirely different story.

Now, I also did not notice in my survey of the Report of the National Advisory Committee on Constitutional Reform of 2024, any suggestion by contributors that voting should be a mandatory civic duty, as is the case in some countries (with exceptions for old age, military engagement, and, in Brazil, literacy level).

But though I agree this should not be the case in T&T, I support the submission reflected in the Report that the “right to vote in free and fair elections” should be entrenched as a constitutional provision.

Still, I don’t think this would produce contests reflective of “the will of the people.” If political parties refuse to improve their performance by attracting better quality people as candidates and, subsequently, members of the government, there will continue to be that 30 – 40 percent who will simply stay away.

In a sense some of this is reflected in submissions to the Committee in the form of several proposed innovations. For example, the suggestion that voters should be given two votes – one for a candidate, and another for a party – can make the important distinction between rejection of an odious candidate offered by a political party you don’t really mind.

The (Prakash) Ramadhar Report of 2013 addresses this two-ballot question in much the same way, but I cannot recall the proposal gaining any ground during the administration of 2010-2015 of which the chairman was a key part.

In the Sinanan Committee Report, the party vote would be a vote for seats in a Senate elected through a list system of proportional representation. Theoretically, this can mean that a “minor” political organisation, unlikely to win a seat through a First Past The Post (FPTP) constituency vote, can find its way into the Senate – ostensibly an enlarged version of the current one.

I am not sure if this means that the party would also need to be among the competitors in all 41 seats to make the party ballot in constituencies where they do not offer a candidate. This may have come up, but I am not sure.

Additionally, I hope this measure does not enable constituency candidates to also be on the Senate list (and therefore allow former President Robinson to rest comfortably wherever he might be).

Any new system should guarantee that candidates who have been unsuccessful via popular vote should not be accorded backdoor entry into parliament or government.

I am also all for a fixed election date. Incumbency already carries with it advantages an opposition party can never replicate. An election date should not be on a slip of paper in any individual’s back pocket.

There is also the perennial issue of proportional representation, ritualistically explored in the public space without consideration of its numerous manifestations. The PR system in Suriname, for example, is not the same as what applies in Guyana. And there are other examples outside of CARICOM. Which version are we speaking about? It makes a difference.

We never really got down to business on this question. It’s worth a closer look. So does what the ballots ask for. NOTA can be a studied option.