Cuba - solidarity and silence

On the day this was published in the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, my country shamelessly voted not to support the resolution, Antigua & Barbuda, Saint Lucia, and Dominica stayed away, while Guyana, Haiti, and Jamaica abstained.

October 28, 2026

I first visited Cuba in 1987. I was detained at the airport. Was intensely interrogated during my trip to the hotel. Wrote a poem in which I surmised: “no place for a Trini”. Was told upon my return that “Special Branch” had come to my media house asking questions.

Then, I was roundly admonished by editor, Raoul Pantin, for repeatedly referencing “Fidel” in my copy. “What happen? He is your friend?”

Mention of “Fidel’s” hours-long speech one day was part of a mini-series on the labour movement in Cuba, how the media there operated, and some reflections on Havana and the sand at Playa Guanabo.

There were people back home who insisted that all was well there. Trinidad and Tobago had defiantly established diplomatic relations in 1972, alongside Barbados, Guyana, and Jamaica. To some, this had been complete anathema. To others, an opportunity for political romanticism not to be missed.

I concluded in 1987 that none of this deserved anything short of well-informed critical review. This was clearly not a straight-forward story.

It was true that while most people welcomed the 1959 overthrow of a corrupt regime that had itself forcibly seized power in 1952, not enough was subsequently done to recognise the relationship between development and human rights. We confronted a similar challenge in Grenada between 1979 and 1983 – solidarity reinforced by sycophantic silence on important challenges.

When I returned to Cuba in 2003 as an international conference rapporteur, having ended my Prensa Latina dispatches some years prior, things appeared more relaxed. But, yes, I was called aside in the hotel lobby and asked to identify people in a photo album. Yes, I had previously turned down a request to interview the wife of a detained journalist. Yes, I linked the two developments … and hereby confess to having “seen” but not looked at those photos.

I also knew my movements around Havana had been monitored and reported back to people I had not realised cared about my camera-bearing wanderings.

Delivering conference Report 2003

What I captured through those two encounters, though, was a country far more Caribbean than it cared to acknowledge. It had never considered Caricom membership. Regular people yearned for something different, but not at the expense of what they considered to be the badge of sovereign status.

That while external pressures to become different people persisted, there was a sense of being obstinately and uniquely Cuban.

There was also the fact that while some observers were prepared to remain silent on or actively rationalise human rights abuse, state neglect of some groups, and the unequal denial of opportunity, there were many who thought things could have been different through both the reform of official behaviour and the withdrawal of sadistic actions by others.

This was not a linear case of “good” vs “bad”. There was space to lobby for internal change even as regional friends militantly opposed aggressive, maliciously harmful outside pressures such as the embargo.

In a sense, Caribbean support for successive United Nations resolutions against far-reaching sanctions against Cuba could have more incessantly relayed knowledgeable, nuanced views on travesties against these Caribbean men, women, children, and babies.

Trinidad and Tobago's annual support for a resolution on the matter now spans decades and is before the UN General Assembly again today. Such support has been bipartisan, consistent, and defiant.

If the intention is to correct internal tensions and anomalies, this cannot occur in the midst of hunger, deprivation, and the sabotaging of the means through which a country and its people may pursue more than basic survival.

The current situation represents a near worst-case scenario. There are widespread electricity failures, water shortages, and disruptions in services essential to proper health care and support for the vulnerable. Close to a million people have had to access food aid within recent months and almost 100,000 surgeries have had to be postponed.

An Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report has concluded that while there exists substantial state responsibility for the situation, there have been the undeniably harmful effects of external sanctions and restricted access to international markets.

Few better states to capture the conundrum and to declare solidarity with the affected people than those of the Caribbean.

Today’s UN vote on the “necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba” offers an opportunity for a much more informed update.

I cannot believe there are those who are suggesting our sentiments will be expressed any other way than we have in the past. How could we have reached here?

Windfalls and resilience

Last week, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) issued its 2026 International Trade Outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean.

I believe its contents merit inclusion in ongoing formal and informal discussions and debates on the merits and demerits of the 2027 national budget statement and the specific measures to meet its goals and targets.

ECLAC reminds us of the potentially disruptive impacts of continued geopolitical conflict, disrupted shipping routes, rising freight and insurance costs, and increasingly unpredictable trade policies.

These factors, the reports suggests, can raise import costs and thereby weaken the competitiveness of exporters.

Diplomatically, ECLAC stops short of spelling out what should be obvious: sycophantic compliance with the indulgences of powerful geopolitical actors offers no insulation against the worst effects of global turmoil. Perhaps it goes without saying. But we should start saying it out loud. It is a massive elephant in the room.

Although the overall regional trade outlook is largely positive, T&T’s export prospects are considerably more modest. Mexico’s resilient export sector, among the world’s 10 largest, and Guyana’s phenomenal oil-driven progress must also be considered when assessing the overall regional picture.

ECLAC's 2026 Report

Yes, the forecast for T&T points to a 2% expansion in exports as opposed to contraction, but this country is expected to lag behind the others expecting an increase in total export value of up to 20%. Again, factor in the main anomalies.

Much of this increase reflects both higher prices and expanding volumes. The T&T Manufacturers Association (TTMA) has encouragingly noted that for the first half of this year, there was an 11.6% expansion in non-energy manufacturing exports.

Regional services exports are meanwhile forecast to grow by 11%, with transport and travel leading the way.

Our central economic thrust appears to be taking advantage of improved purchasing power from favourable hydrocarbon prices, increased production after a 45% contraction over the past 12 years, and longer-term opportunities in services. But there is a cautionary note here: the projected natural gas price of US$5 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) deserves critical scrutiny.

But both natural gas prices and production are heavily reliant on numerous factors outside our direct control. Expanded benefits from the services sector in turn rely heavily on foreign direct investment, rigorous programmes of skills development, and coordinated public policy that gets priorities right.

ECLAC identifies T&T among the economies expected to record improvements, largely because of higher hydrocarbon and commodity prices. This can bring improved purchasing power, and a greater capacity to finance imports with export earnings. But this may at the same time diminish enthusiasm for domestic production of consumables.

Correspondingly, if the forecasts for higher energy prices hold, our Caricom neighbours will face threats to their net trade gains. Such a challenge will not easily disappear from our neighbourhood fence.

The ECLAC report argues that T&T should employ gains from favourable energy prices and enhanced production to expand opportunities in new and existing areas.

I believe there is a very strong case for harnessing the creative sector but there are other important possibilities, as identified by ECLAC. These include business, professional, financial, information technology, and research and development services. There are people also making the case for both traditional and medical tourism.

Additionally, external delivery of digital services is an area due for far more competent exploitation.

Manual backends with digital facades are not what is meant by modern deployment of digital services. Neither the state nor private sectors seem to understand this.

ECLAC has nevertheless noted such potential in T&T with emphasis on engineering, software, and design and data management. There are people here who know about such things. They should be found and put to work.

Significantly, ECLAC puts several risks on the table for consideration. The first is energy-price volatility and chronic fiscal dependence on the sector. The second is that even if price volatility works to our benefit, weak production can limit revenue gains. Then there is the question of foreign-exchange shortages that can constrain attempts at diversification.

Finally, there is no guarantee that current global conflicts will not alleviate the chance of shipping disruptions and trade fragmentation.

These are some important reality checks that should dominate the public discourse.

Yes, it is important to consider the revenue gains from energy production and prices. The true test would be derived from an ability to employ such earnings to build an economy better equipped to withstand the downturns. That’s the test of a successful budget.

Culture as economic asset

It’s hugely perilous to submit a budget-related newspaper column the very evening of the presentation of the annual package of survival measures. The national budget was presented on Monday October 12. My submission to the T&T Guardian was expected that very day.

In T&T, though, one thing you can rely on is a curious contradiction: a country capable of producing world-class creative work remains focused almost entirely on exhaustible and often unreliable assets. The value of these resources, moreover, depends heavily on external factors beyond our control.

Such irony is not unique to any single political administration. The T&T Chamber of Industry and Commerce addresses the gap under its “Orange Economy” banner.

Meanwhile, generations of world-class musicians, mas designers, visual artists, dancers, dramatists, writers, and filmmakers continue to be treated as though their principal value lies solely on tourist entertainment, “cultural preservation”, keeping young people out of trouble, or occasional international acclaim.

The clichéd truism of “culture as a unifying force that defines our national identity” is insufficient to acknowledge economic value. It’s like how the need to “harness” potential, without specific evaluation of what can be useful to achieve this, can ring hollow without mention of tangible funding and performance indicators.

The problem has never been a shortage of talent, unifying potential, enterprise, or productivity. We are looking at this during a week in which final tributes are being paid to the late, great Mighty Sparrow.

All of this is occurring in the middle of an arguably unprecedented explosion of creative expression in this country. This is particularly so among the “lost generation”  who are being openly targeted for “buss tail” punishment and age discrimination – as opposed to protection - through law and official policy.

The problem may well be that those responsible for tailoring the basic frameworks for development of economic options are unaware of what is actually transpiring. I strongly suspect so.

I roam the creative space quite a lot and even participate. But I don’t regularly see the decisionmakers where I go.

There have been numerous art exhibitions, dance recitals, operatic performances, calypso shows, jazz and pop concerts, spoken word events, and literary expositions.

The people who crafted the minister’s speech – both in its economic and political dimensions – need to prove to some of us that they have been around to witness what is happening. If not, there can be no claim of enlightened evaluation.

Next weekend also marks the launch of Panorama 2027. That’s a whole different story. This space has been overly employed to stress the latent economic value of the national instrument – not only as a source of music, but as a renewable resource involving growing numbers of young and old people – including the “lost generation.”

Shell Invaders Youth Steel Orchestra - Winners 2026

So, this week, I am not going too far down that road except to say that progressive state responsibility for growing creative industries can never be considered to be mere acts of “charity.” Especially by people who are never around to witness what has happened or is happening in that sector alone.

Mention of skills-development for a culturally important industry such as steelpan is important. However, the scope of what was identified on Monday does not capture the broader steelpan ecosystem of performance, composition, arranging, instrument design, festivals, recording, distribution, and international promotion.

With diversification being an enduring, recurring national aspiration, the question is whether the creative sector will be treated as a collection of deserving cultural interests or as an interconnected economic system capable of generating employment, exports, investment, and innovation.

There is some evidence that the opportunity is substantial. A January 2023 CDB study - The Contribution of Copyright-Based Industries to the Economy of Trinidad and Tobago - estimated that the creative industries accounted for 5.5 per cent of GDP in 2016.

This was equivalent to approximately TT$8.3 billion in value added. This marked an increase in estimated contribution from 4.8 per cent of GDP in 2011. The study also estimated that copyright-based industries accounted for 20,113 jobs in 2016 and generated a positive overall trade balance of TT$113 million.

These are historical estimates covering a broad range of “copyright-based” industries, not a current valuation of the entire creative economy. So, don’t take this away as unquestioning fact. The figures however provide evidence of economic activity that deserves far closer attention.

The report's significance extends beyond its numbers. It identifies the potential for investment in copyright-based production to strengthen productivity, expand foreign currency inflows, and help diversify a near monocultural economy.

Its recommendations include financing arrangements, incentives, improved copyright enforcement, institutional strengthening, and investment in skills.

These are not simply “cultural policy” concerns. They are economic development requirements. Even if we acknowledge gaps in the 2023 analysis, where are these broad sentiments in Budget 2027? When have they ever been there?

Caribbean solidarity and Haiti

The world has developed the habit of leaving Haiti to disappear from international conversations between grand, headline-grabbing events.

Recent rhetoric out of the halls of the UN, OAS, and Caricom suggests an intention to resist such an inclination. But we have been here before … numerous times.

Haiti, we all must learn, is more than a photo-op.

Understandably, this side of the insular Caricom arc simultaneously confronts intractable, recurring issues related to substandard governance, economic fragility, and the erosion of human rights as a vital socio-political pillar.

This side of the archipelago, we have long lost leadership status on matters of such wider interest – however longingly they remain at our door awaiting attention. We should have learned from the Venezuelan experience.

The temptation to forget Haiti has been vastly overwhelming. So, I return to this subject despite the current domestic lure of revenge mistaken for justice, condemnation of a generation, and coercion being considered a first option in pursuit of behaviour change.

Even as Haiti was busy beating the Dominican Republic 4-1 at the CONCACAF Nations League game last Thursday in Santo Domingo - where mass Haitian migrant expulsions have been taking place - the northern town of Gros-Morne, across the border, remained in grief from a murderous gang attack only days earlier.

The September 28 incursion left 11 people dead, many injured, and even more fleeing. This proves, with devastating clarity, that Port-au-Prince is not the only staging point for slaughter.

And, yes, World Tourism Day was commemorated only the day before in Pétion-Ville, a sub-urb just south of Port-au-Prince. Haiti is that kind of place. Journalist Phares Jerome’s compelling article in Le Nouvelliste explained.

Visiting the CARICOM troops in Cap-Haitien (1994)

It is fair to argue, however, that international commitments need to translate into protection more quickly and effectively. Several external warnings have been sounded. Amnesty International is clear that the spreading violence does not portend well for planned December elections.

The dreaded (as we heard at the UNGA from the US) International Organization for Migration (IOM) has reported that the Gros-Morne attack displaced approximately 5,254 people within days.

These are the developments that remind us that we should not permit Haiti to slip off the table of Caribbean deliberations – however remote some of us consider the collateral effects.

It is not that absolutely nothing is being considered or done. As advocated by the Caricom Eminent Persons Group (EPG) and others, the United Nations Security Council has renewed the mandate of an indispensable Gang Suppression Force (GSF).

The OAS recently mounted a high-level mission and the EPG has itself visited Haiti several times and engaged numerous stakeholders.

OAS Secretary-General, Albert Ramdin, has identified security and elections as Haiti's two urgent and interconnected priorities. A recent OAS reported has also warned that international assistance must produce concrete and visible results and that Haitian institutions, where they remain viable, must reside at the centre of the response.

The EPG has found common cause on this subject. The team comprising former Saint Lucia Prime Minister Kenny Anthony, former Jamaica Prime Minister Bruce Golding and former Bahamas Prime Minister Perry Christie has sounded loud and clear alarms.

December 13 elections remain tentative in the face of  insecurity, kidnappings, and territories beyond state control. Voter registration is sluggish. Journalist Frantz Duval has reported that as of October 2, the list of registered electors stood at just 737,478.

Miami Herald’s Jacqueline Charles has estimated the entire voting population to be in the vicinity of 6 million.

The electoral timetable remains an important potential milestone. It was born out of high hopes. But elections are never just another date on a calendar.

An empty or under-populated ballot box means nothing. Renewing the GSF mandate does not by itself protect the Haitian population.

For Caricom, therefore, Haiti is not simply another item on a crowded regional agenda. It is a test of whether Caribbean regionalism can translate solidarity into sustained action when one of its own members is in profound distress.

Back in 1995, upon the return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide to office in October 1994 (and when I first visited), the late Mighty Sparrow was hopeful: “Come along with me/Life will be happy,/It will be ecstasy/If you come with me down to Haiti … Great expectancy, come in Haiti/It's democracy now in my country” he sang in ‘Democracy in Haiti (Liberté).’

That did not turn out to be the case and, even so, it would have been foolish to believe none of this was any of our business. Sparrow called Haiti “my country”!

Our UN photo album

The General Debate (GD) of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 81) ended Monday and did not always disappoint when it came to the efficient delivery of photo-ops, headlines, soundbites, and high drama.

Correspondingly, there must have been a separate cargo flight to transport signed, soon-to-be-forgotten memoranda of understanding, agreements, and other documents that made it through the prolific press release mill back to home territories, including ours.

Don’t get me wrong, bilateral diplomacy matters – however ad hoc, opportunistic, or gratuitously amplified via public communication channels. The term “speed-dating” has been used more than once to describe such interactions.

A leader attending a high-profile meeting, energetically delivering a speech or stomping in and out of the hall may generate media coverage. But a 15-minute private exchange and a handshake in a corridor has the potential to meaningfully change things. So, I am not dismissing its possible importance.

If, for example, the Persad-Bissessar/ Rodríguez speed date resulted in genuine infatuation and open declarations of love, that is not an easily dismissible outcome, however temporal. Click!

In fact, that meeting lived up to and even exceeded its billing as a decisive, made-for-media encounter minus mention of the contentious “res non grata” (to coin my own idiom employing the Latin ‘res’ for “thing”) Venezuela-plus-Essequibo brooch worn by Rodríguez).

What is important now is what gets consummated at the second and third and fourth dates.

Last week I drew attention to the fact that UNGA 81 included several “High-Level” meetings on what, in this neck of the woods, must be considered of great priority – even more than main stage grandiloquence and posturing.

Second Floor Flag Hall (United Nations)

From the reports, T&T was present for some of these; however unremarkable our contributions. Saint Lucia, currently holding the Caricom chair, was listed to address collective regional concerns at the High-Level Meeting on Climate Action and the Just Transition last Wednesday.

Barbados represented the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) – a group of developing countries deemed to be highly vulnerable to climate change. Jamaica and St Vincent and the Grenadines were also there in their own right and addressed the meeting.

On the margins that day, with climate concerns in mind, the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and Caricom “formalised their partnership through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).” Click!

The fact is UNGA 81 was, outside of the main hall, the setting for substantive conversations on issues that go directly to our collective and individual interests - climate finance, adaptation, energy transition, resilience, information integrity and, critically, sea-level rise.

For T&T, these are not obscure UN issues or needless burdens founded on demonic assertions of a climate crisis. They involve issues of sovereignty, maritime space, coastal communities, infrastructure, fisheries, tourism, water security, and development finance.

I may have missed it but have not received anything to suggest that consideration of such issues was newsworthy enough to make it through our official communication infrastructure or had in fact been rigorously explored.

The climate-finance discussions, for example, got down to nitty-gritty examination of lingering questions regarding the cost of capital to address low carbon transition issues, the expansion of concessional finance, debt, and the conversion of national adaptation plans into financeable programmes.

I am aware we were present at the High-Level Meeting on Sea-Level Rise and raised some key points about full capitalisation of the Loss and Damage Fund. But where were the photos? The press releases?

Perhaps the PM’s comment on the matter was not meant to be overshadowed when she declared at the GD: “Trinidad and Tobago brings a distinctive perspective as we understand that climate resilience, energy security, affordability and economic development must advance together.”

At COP30 in Belém last November, T&T was also among those calling for predictable, accessible, and adequate climate finance to bridge the gap between ambition and implementation. Click!

Yet, as currently applies, citizens should not have to reconstruct the substance of our international engagement last week from UN transcripts and other obscure documents.

Admittedly, there was little local journalism on this, and neither the propagandists nor usual trolls are typically interested in such boring details.

Even so, a photograph tells us who met whom. A signing ceremony tells us that something was signed. But serious public diplomacy should also tell citizens what was negotiated, what was sought, what was committed, what was obtained and what happens next.

On mutually assured survival

(First published in the T&T Guardian on September 28, 2022)

It may well have been the case that Caricom leaders had strategised to weave a vast multitude of questions into the chaotic underside of the Caribbean embroidery at the UN General Assembly debate which closed on Monday.

However, the knots and ragged snips and dissonant entanglements required to produce at the frontside, a partial, yet seductively healthful view of the whole remained on full display.

To be certain, both our hemispheric neighbours, and those beyond, too frequently lease a homogeneous Caribbean visage of their own design. Initially, as cover for brutalities of the past, and latterly as deception to escape complicity and responsibility.

It could not be, we once thought, that even those who shared major hurts of our disturbed past could now be seated at the table, two elbows away, and be despising us.

It is the stuff of diplomatic routine to negotiate such multi-polarities. Ambivalence bred by both self-interest and the prospects for mutually assured survival in the face of undeniable interdependence.

In what ways are the stories of Venezuela and Nicaragua and Cuba not our own, was the gist of Ralph Gonsalves’ retort. To what degree are Russian depravities at its borders irrelevant to Gaston Browne’s admonitions regarding the increasingly anachronistic Security Council?

In what ways, as Dickon Mitchell urged, do we harness the value of youth and the rich harvest they may bring.

T&T’s Amery Browne notably cited the scourge of transnational, organised crime without, as was required I must say, substantially dissecting the hemispheric dynamics that facilitate it.

Instead, like almost everyone else, he went for the scattershot, knowing full well that officially appointed dissent would ritualistically fall short of anything resembling a competent response or rebuttal.

It may have been that the joint regional brief was to cast a wide fine-mesh net to signal a vast terrain of limitless priorities. But, as with the fisherfolk out at sea, we are not always best served by the resulting catch. In too many ways a hierarchy of needs is assured disorder especially when everything, as is the current case, is proposed as a priority.

Ironically, we have also been undecided, at the height of the pandemic for example, whether we, as a regional community, should ride the waves or crash against the same heavy seas on different vessels.

Successive collective bubbles either popped or contracted to the size of smaller spaces. There are even those who would have preferred smaller capsules – in the process leading the charge of destructive denialism and applauding tragic failure.

Of course, to those who pursue other destinies, none of this really matters. We can tell by the way you grasp that passport or how you frame partisan desire. We got to know you well – deformed shadows in the face of approaching light. Laughing emojis at the sight of tragedy and pain.

All this as an unapologetic response to those who picked up on the prospects for hope this page has attempted to offer in recent weeks. Complete repudiation of the notions of a “lost generation” and of a “failed race.”

So it is with our embrace of the world, self-validation is needed in consort with far greater self-confidence. The UNGA presents an opportunity to say what about the challenges is new and unique and to explain why the disparate vessels of change may collide and be lost at sea.

This, to me, requires far more diligent management of all the processes involved when it comes to our Caribbean future. The banal challenges fed by fear and an absence of fraternity are not among the least important of the assignment.

Here in Kingston, where I am briefly, the battle cries persist despite the recent, gratuitously displayed full mast of white flags. In Georgetown, a single flag, not all, is soaking in the rich mud these days.

What has been uttered in New York is but a faint spectre of what pierces our silence here at home. There remain many who believe that we sink or swim on our solitary own. Changing all of this can make the difference between sad conclusions and our mutually assured survival.

Just transition questions

Today’s packed public affairs agenda can have the impact of shattering the desire for unifocal attention. At the top resides continued parliamentary consideration, via the Senate this time, and public commentary on the contentious Special Operations Bill.

Yet, the timeline for this submission and its publication today undermines a desire to be thorough and to capture a vast and growing variety of perspectives.

These include my concerns about the secure practice of journalism, and the impact on the creative sector by less than thoughtful application of constitutional derogations. More, next week. I promise.

Alongside this, there is at least one other significant event. Our Prime Minister and her delegation are currently in New York attending the 81^st Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

The Prime Minister’s meeting with Venezuela’s acting President, Delcy Rodríguez, should provide a nice photo-op and produce the usual bland foreign ministry communiqué, while avoiding mention of the Venezuelan map showing claimed Guyanese territory that she wore as a pin when she arrived in New York. The PM, based on her prior utterances, should take public note of this.

We should also be minded that while special attention justifiably turns to the General Debate – which began yesterday – there are, typically, several other concurrent events with the potential to sharpen focus on the platitudes of the main stage.

UNGA 2026

We would do well, for example, to regard today’s UNGA’s High-Level Meeting (HLM) on Climate Action and the Just Transition as one of the more important events.

Its significance lies in the opportunity to move beyond broad declarations and confront a difficult question: How can developing countries reconcile climate obligations with the equally urgent demands of economic development?

That precise question was explored by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar in her address to the 80th UNGA last year. I believe her rather contentious pronouncements on the “force-feeding” of the climate agenda and “blackmail” by the developed world did not attract the critical dissection they deserved.

Later on, at COP30 in Belém last November, Planning Minister Kennedy Swaratsingh was not exactly on message (as per UNGA 80) when he argued that “ambition alone is not enough” and that the transition to a low-carbon future (my words) must take centre stage.

He called for predictable, accessible, and adequate climate finance to bridge the gap between ambition and implementation.

The Prime Minister’s more combative, and therefore instructive argument had been that national climate policies must balance development and poverty eradication with environmental protection.

She also maintained that fossil fuels remain essential to contemporary economies. The PM may as well have been referencing the dilemmas of not only T&T, but the energy market’s regional newcomers, Suriname and Guyana.

For, though their economic circumstances are different they too confront the complicated interface involving hydrocarbons, development, and the international drive towards decarbonisation.

The HLM thus provides an opportunity to turn that dilemma into a more substantive Caribbean conversation. I hope Monday’s meeting of the Caricom Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR) did not leave this subject abegging, even if geopolitical neglect dominated.

The Concept Note on the HLM acknowledges that initial ambitions aimed at containing global emissions to below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels are more likely to be “overshot” with a trajectory tending in the direction of 2°C.

At the global level, if we subscribe to scientifically supported “anthropogenic” human triggers (some flat earthers even here in T&T do not), this calls for accelerated execution, adaptation, resilience, increased renewable energy (not idle solar farms), and substantially greater access to affordable finance.

But implementation is precisely where the argument becomes complicated. Swaratsingh had pointed to measures being pursued by T&T, including electric vehicles in the public sector, solar water heating, exploration of green hydrogen, and emerging carbon markets.

He had stressed that the transition must be fair and just, while protecting workers and vulnerable communities and creating new economic opportunities.

Taken together, these positions suggest that the Caribbean debate need not be framed as climate action versus development.

The more useful question is what a genuinely “just transition” means for economies whose development has been or is about to be closely connected to fossil fuels.

How quickly can such economies diversify without jeopardising employment, government revenues, and energy security? How can they finance the transition when capital remains expensive? And who should bear the costs when developing countries are being asked to transform their economies?

These are not arguments against climate action. They are questions about the conditions under which climate action in our neck of the woods can realistically succeed.