The climate change dilemma

TT finds itself at odds with our Caricom neighbours in the current Venezuela-US crisis.

That’s no surprise, since we have a very different geopolitical orientation.

We are also at odds with ourselves, for being the only energy-based regional economy dependent on fossil fuels, which pose the greatest threat to mankind, especially those living in small island states like ours. We are both poacher and gamekeeper.

Those few hundred miles between TT and the rest of our linguistic and historical island family are actually, in existential terms, more like thousands of miles.

TT is at the junction of the actively shifting southeast corner of the Caribbean tectonic plate and the northeast margin of South America. It gives us both similar and different potential natural disasters to cope with from our island neighbours.

To be precise, we sit in one of the more seismically active zones in the Eastern Caribbean, with an annual average of about 260 earthquakes of magnitude greater than 2.0; but our proximity to the Latin American mainland shields us from the ravages of hurricanes.

The other islands, meanwhile, are sitting bang in the middle of the hurricane belt, in a less active earthquake belt. Many of them are volcanically active, with histories of recent disruptive eruptions.

Barbados, already the most densely populated Caribbean nation, is not only one of the most water-scarce, with an out-of-whack consumption level because of mass tourism, but also has a relatively flat landmass, making it more vulnerable to rising sea levels than its mountainous neighbours.

Understandably, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley has been one of the most vociferous world leaders about the threat to small island states: “1.5C to stay alive” has been the mantra. She helped to communicate on the world stage the reality of that scenario to island populations if we exceed that limit.

Sadly, the fact is that the world is losing valuable momentum in reducing carbon emissions and phasing out fossil fuels. Even with current Paris COP 2015 policies in place, we will hit as much as 2.8C of warming by 2100, according to a 2025 UN report. Reportedly, last year was the first to breach the 1.5C threshold over a calendar year, which does not augur well.

Being dependent on the production and export of oil and gas, which, with coal, contribute almost 90 per cent of all carbon emissions and over two-thirds of global greenhouses, while also adding to the climate threats to our neighbours and ourselves, is not a pleasant contradiction.

We have to live in the modern world, in which non-renewable energy is still critical for economic and social development, and TT is blessed with that commodity.

Our neighbours, however, are not without their own contradictions. They depend on tourism – an industry completely reliant upon sea, air and land transportation, all significant contributors to carbon emissions.

The challenge is to walk the line between self-interest and the greater good. That is the big struggle.

COP30 – the UN climate change conference, which ended on Friday in Brazil – was very uncomfortable to observe. The absence of the leaders of the world’s three largest emitters – the US, China, and India – was conspicuous. Together they account for nearly half of global greenhouse-gas emissions.

At least China, for the first time, committed to an absolute target to cut its emissions, and India is moving ahead with renewable energy sources.

It is inexplicable that President Trump’s consciousness is impervious to rising sea levels, soaring global temperatures, melting polar ice caps and glaciers, global plagues and extreme weather everywhere.

Tangibly connecting people to the crisis has taken quite imaginative and innovative forms to grab international media headlines. In 2009, an underwater photoshoot in the world’s lowest-lying nation – the Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean – broke new ground. An underwater cabinet meeting was photographed, filmed and broadcast around the world. Then, wearing an oxygen mask, Nepal’s prime minister held a cabinet meeting on Mt Everest, also in 2009. In 2021, Tuvalu's foreign minister stood knee-deep in the sea to deliver a well-publicised speech.

Oceanic climate activists had a landmark success in July when the International Court of Justice gave an “advisory opinion” that nations can be held legally accountable for their greenhouse-gas emissions. So countries can sue one another over climate change, including for historic emissions of planet-warming gases.

Although the ruling is non-binding, legal experts advise it could have wide-ranging consequences for countries failing to develop ambitious plans to tackle climate change, which puts them in breach of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

We can only guess at damages for a successful claim, but Nature published a previous analysis which estimated that there were US$2.8 trillion losses from climate change – or US$16 million per hour – in 2000-2019.

Money talks best, so it might be the right cat to put among the unseeing pigeons.