TT yet to ratify Paris agreement

This country needs to take climate change more seriously, says the IAMovement – starting by ratifying the COP21 Paris Climate Agreement, which Government signed on to during the December 2015 conference. IAMovement’s managing director, Jonathan Barcant, lamented: “TT has still not ratified the (COP21) agreement, which is the next step in the process to implement.

“This puts us among 28 countries of the 195 countries of the world who have not done so, putting us among the 15 per cent minority of the world’s countries not showing our commitment to working towards global mitigation of climate change. Meanwhile, every other country in the Caribbean and in fact the Commonwealth has already ratified the Agreement.”

Signatories to the agreement collectively committed to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to targets which each country set for themselves, called the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

TT’s commitments are: to unconditionally reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the public-transport sector by 30 per cent by the year 2030, and to conditionally reduce overall greenhouse-gas emissions by 15 per cent of business as usual by the year 2030.

Barcant said in the 2016 budget presentation, Government also committed to the use of ten per cent renewable energy generation by 2021.

The non-profit organisation’s latest efforts to effect positive environmental and social change, called a “hackathon,” took place over the weekend. The Port of Spain Climathon, or #ClimathonPOS, held over 24 hours from Friday into Saturday, was one of more than 100 global climate-change awareness events held over the weekend.

Participating teams had to come up with proposed solutions to climate-change challenges facing cities and countries around the world. In Port of Spain, this year’s topic was Urban Agriculture and Greening the City. The theme was chosen to help generate potential solutions for food security and shine a light on this need, while creating healthier, cleaner environments within the capital city.

The hackathon began at noon last Friday at the St Clair home of French Ambassador Hédi Picquart, then continued through the night at Queen’s Royal College, Port of Spain, before ending at noon on Saturday in the Queen’s Park Savannah with the formation of a massive #Heart4Climate in which people stood in the shape of a heart and which the public joined in.

Barcant called for TT to become true energy leaders, going beyond supplying fossil fuels to find new economic opportunities in renewable energy.