T&T HOT AND COLD ON CLIMATE CHANGE

PATRICK Manning, as Prime Minister in 2009, showed global leadership on the urgent issue of climate change. 

But precious little has been done by Trinidad and Tobago, even as a brand-new United Nations report states that vulnerable nations are “on the edge of extinction” if urgent action is not taken. 

Vulnerable nations include small islands like T&T. 

In 2009, Manning, as chair of the 54-member Commonwealth, told a summit in Port of Spain that T&T was working “assiduously” with other nations toward an agreement on climate change. 

He said the climate issue would affect food security, partly because of “shrinking water supplies.” 

He spoke loftily of providing leadership to the two million people of the Commonwealth on limiting global warming and curbing carbon emissions. 

“We must not be victims of any pessimism,” Manning told the distinguished gathering. 

Queen Elizabeth 11, titular head of the Commonwealth, then-UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other world leaders also chimed in with declarations on climate change. 

The Queen said: “The Commonwealth has an opportunity to lead once more.” 

Brown called for a US $10 billion-a-year fund to help developing countries battle climate change. 

Nearly half of Commonwealth countries are small islands. 

Manning was “highly commended” by the UN boss.  

A few weeks after the conference, Manning was one of 115 world leaders who took part in extensive climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark. 

He delivered a rousing address at that meeting, stating: “Let us make a greater effort to achieve that of which we aspire.” 

He called for an agreement on reducing emissions. 

But Manning’s stirring words – and similar sentiments from other leaders – have not amounted to much. 

T&T has never made an effort to reduce its carbon emissions, although the shutdown of a number of industrial plants at Point Lisas and elsewhere have helped the environment. 

As an energy producer, T&T has a high carbon footprint, of the equivalent of 25.39 tons per person. 

There is coastal erosion caused by rising sea levels. 

Unusual weather patterns have led to both floods and water shortages. 

After Manning ran hot on climate change, T&T has gone cold, while the just-released UN report states that global warming could make parts of the world uninhabitable. 

There have been “unprecedented” and “irreversible” changes to the climate, according to the study. 

British leader Boris Johnson called the landmark report a “wake-up call to the world.” 

There is a fresh wave of anxiety from top international figures. 

In her first address to the United Nations General Assembly in September 2010, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, as Prime Minister, said that climate change “needs a concerted effort to achieve results.” 

Addressing an energy conference in June 2020, Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley offered a guarantee on the matter. 

Rowley said his government “is committed to reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions through the use of cleaner forms of energy and the promotion of renewable energy and energy efficiency.” 

It is not known how much – if anything – has been achieved over the years through direct action in reducing T&T’s carbon emissions. 

And while T&T has dropped the ball, the UN report warned that heat waves, heavy rainfall and droughts would become more common and extreme. 

Temperatures and sea levels would rise over the next two decades, the report stated. 

“This is the critical decade for action,” said United States’ climate envoy John Kerry. 

Manning said the same thing in 2009.