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.