The largest regularly scheduled global event to review
progress on actions related to climate change (the climate crisis) has convened
in the city of Belem, Brazil in the presence of some of the more vocally
sceptical states - albeit through relatively low-level representation.
Nobody - whatever the public bluster - seems willing to risk
being too far away from decision-making on and the coordination of efforts to
combat what has been recognised by the world’s leading scientists as an
existential challenge of our time.
Countries like the United States, China, India, and more
recently Argentina, have assigned low priority to the 30th Conference of the
Parties (COP) – the annual high-level meeting of the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). And they are all already in or en route
to Brazil’s “City of Mango Trees” along the bank of the Amazon River.
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| COP 30 - Belem |
T&T’s Planning Minister Kennedy Swaratsingh is also due to arrive soon to lead a team of experts from within his ministry. This country’s role has in the past been among the more vibrant within Caricom and some of our officials are highly regarded in the region and beyond.
Any slippage in active, influential involvement by any of us
in the Caribbean will undoubtedly send wrong signals. This applies not only to
our regional and hemispheric partners but to global benefactors who have
accepted a role in assisting the more vulnerable states come to terms with the
symptoms of this phenomenon.
This has been particularly recognised by countries that know
most about the potentially devastating effects of changing climate conditions.
True, commitments of support have not always materialised.
But there is general recognition of the requirement of the wealthy and powerful
… the most complicit … to acknowledge a level of responsibility.
Whatever the geo-political adventures and fantasies being
engaged by some, the small island and low-lying coastal territories of our
region cannot drift, geographically, away from where we are currently located.
We cannot just get up and retreat from any of this.
Grenadian engineer Simon Stiell serves as UN Climate Change
Executive Secretary and provides proof of our region’s entrenched presence and
engagement of the process. T&T scientist Prof. John Agard shared the 2007
Nobel Peace Prize alongside other experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC).
T&T was also a founding member of the 39-member Alliance
of Small Island States (AOSIS), and our own Annette Des Iles occupied the chair
between 1995 and 1997. In 2002, Caricom established the Caribbean Community
Climate Change Centre (CCCCC).
Additionally, whether we decide to re-engage the already
settled question of an anthropogenic (man-made) contribution to what the world
is currently witnessing or delegate divine or other mystical responsibility,
warnings of more intense and more frequent weather events are hardly
dismissible. This is so, whatever politicians, powerbrokers, and amateur
scientists with internet connections contend.
And even if we do concede that something – whatever its
origins - is happening that is causing harm and elevating fear there is no
waving away, by social media post or political declaration, the fact that our
small highly exposed island and low-lying coastal states will have to find a
way to cope/adapt/mitigate much better than we have in the past.
The people of western Jamaica are at this time uninterested
in what either the climate sceptics or scientists have to say. There is also no
imminent magical rescue by way of international political posturing. The
current overriding concerns include recovery from grief, physical injury,
infrastructural devastation, and a hope that in rebuilding there will be a
capacity to rebuild better.
Host President Lula da Silva has meanwhile described the
Belem Conference as the “COP of truth” and inserted strong elements of
humanitarian concern. UN Secretary General, António Guterres correspondingly
insists the world has “never been better equipped to fight back” against
climate change.
Such exclamations however lose their sting when both the
wealthy and powerful, together with some of the poor and vulnerable take
concerted eyes off the climate challenge.
Stiell said yesterday that the 2015 Paris Agreement - a
legally binding international treaty on climate change – “is delivering real
progress, but we must accelerate in the Amazon.”
There also appears to be a need to accelerate
decision-making and action in the major capitals of the world, as in the
Caribbean Sea and everywhere else the subject of climate change is being
recognised and experienced as an urgent condition.
It is hoped that Belem will bring Lula’s “truth” and
Guterres’ “fight” to the table in ways not previously witnessed. There is room
for both hope and concern.
