Civil society organisations launch climate report

The TT Civil Society report: Spotlight on Sustainable Development (SDG) Goal 13 - Climate Action highlights recommendations by civil society organisations (CSOs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on government’s implementation of the SDG. The report, completed in March, was virtually launched on June 15 by the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI).

CANARI Technical Officer Candice Ramkissoon said the report was prepared to support the Voluntary National Review (VNR) by the TT government at the 2020 UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in early July. She said the organisation took the opportunity to present a report from the CSO perspective when it became aware of government’s intention to present its report.

Ramkissoon said the report was compiled after consultation with 53 CSOs, interviews, an online survey, a consultation workshop, research and a desk review. She said the CSOs wanted to take a cross-cutting sectorial approach to looking at the SDGs. They came up with five clusters under which they mapped priority actions and recommendations to accelerate climate action. These were: gender & equality; sustainable cities & communities; energy, and responsible consumption and production; biodiversity; and health, water, and food security.

The report listed 30 priorities for action on climate change in TT and assigned them a score based on whether there had been little, intermediate or significant progress. Of the 30 priorities, only one had seen significant progress, while 12 had seen little progress, and 17 had seen intermediate progress.

Some of the key challenges faced for addressing climate change were: poor access to funding; lack of information for decision-making and a clear understanding of the scale of the threat; weak policies, legislation and political will; limited coordination within Government and with civil society and the private sector; and, limited awareness, education and knowledge dissemination to the populace to enable behaviour change.

The report also provided ten key recommendations for enabling CSOs and NGOs to assist government in taking action against climate change, including updating the National Climate Change Policy (2011) and improving the functionality and enhancing access of CSOs to the TT Green Fund. The organisations called for government to accelerate action on climate change by carrying out a further eight actions, including practicing good governance and prioritise access to information, transparency and accountability in all actions taken to address climate action and sustainable development.

Report link: Spotlight on Sustainable Development Goal 13 Climate Action

Summary link: Spotlight on Sustainable Development Goal 13 Climate Action