“Let us work for the sur­vival of ours, and all species. Let's not choose ex­tinc­tion.”

That was the key mes­sage from Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Kei­th Row­ley MP, as he urged Heads of Gov­ern­ment from around the globe at­tend­ing the World Lead­ers Sum­mit on Cli­mate Change (COP26), to ho­n­our the Paris Agree­ment, and work hard­er to achieve its goals.

“Even as a small coun­try with lim­it­ed re­sources, we will make every ef­fort to re­port to the re­quired stan­dard, with some as­sis­tance, of course. We ex­pect oth­ers to do the same. This is the deal we made in Paris.  We can­not go back on it now,” he stat­ed.

Dur­ing his speech to world lead­ers to­day, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley told world lead­ers to not let this op­por­tu­ni­ty to turn around the cli­mate change co­nun­drum to go to waste.

“Be­yond the rhetoric and pledges, every coun­try needs to be se­ri­ous about ur­gent ac­tion in this decade. Trinidad and To­ba­go is com­mit­ted to work­ing with all coun­tries in the mul­ti­lat­er­al frame­work to en­sure a safe and se­cure world for those yet to be born.  It is my sin­cere hope that we will all be able to look back at COP 26, and the com­mit­ments and progress made here in Glas­gow, as key steps to­wards a health­i­er sal­vage­able plan­et Earth.”

T&T’s PM al­so urged world lead­ers to put spe­cial em­pha­sis on adap­ta­tion ef­forts, apart from mit­i­ga­tion projects, and stressed the im­por­tance of prop­er fi­nanc­ing be­ing made avail­able to un­der­write cli­mate change ac­tion.

The fol­low­ing is the full text of the speech pre­sent­ed to world lead­ers at COP26 by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley…

Mr. Pres­i­dent,

Your Ex­cel­len­cies Heads of Gov­ern­ment,

We gath­er to­day at a piv­otal point in the his­to­ry of hu­man­i­ty, in a fur­ther at­tempt to deep­en com­mit­ment and de­ter­mi­na­tion to mit­i­gate the ef­fects of cli­mate change.   

The Au­gust 2021 re­port of the In­ter-Gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change has pre­sent­ed a sober­ing out­look, and brought in­to fo­cus the se­vere short­fall in clos­ing the emis­sions gap.  Any tem­per­a­ture in­crease be­yond the 1.5 de­grees Cel­sius lev­el will have long-term and per­ma­nent con­se­quences, par­tic­u­lar­ly for small coun­tries and economies such as Trinidad and To­ba­go. The on­ly so­lu­tion there­fore, is to in­crease col­lec­tive am­bi­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the World En­er­gy Out­look, in or­der for the world to shift from our cur­rent un­sus­tain­able path, we need to: fo­cus on dri­ving re­new­able and sus­tain­able elec­tri­fi­ca­tion, im­prov­ing ef­fi­cien­cy, re­duc­ing methane emis­sions and tur­bo charg­ing in­no­va­tion.  We al­so need to im­ple­ment strate­gies to un­lock cap­i­tal flows in sup­port of en­er­gy tran­si­tions and en­sure re­li­a­bil­i­ty and af­ford­abil­i­ty.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley MP, as he addressed world leaders at the COP26 Summit in Glasgow, on Tuesday 2 November 2021. (Image courtesy UNFCC)

Mr. Pres­i­dent,

While mit­i­ga­tion am­bi­tion is dri­ven by the 1.5 de­grees Cel­sius goal, the glob­al goal on adap­ta­tion has failed to achieve a com­men­su­rate lev­el of at­ten­tion and ac­tion.  At COP26, we must en­sure that we have an out­come that helps to raise adap­ta­tion, am­bi­tion and ac­tion. Es­tab­lish­ing a spe­cif­ic work pro­gramme af­ter COP26, to de­fine the de­tails for the glob­al goal on adap­ta­tion, will be key.

Trinidad and To­ba­go is a small is­land de­vel­op­ing state al­ready ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the ef­fects of cli­mate change.  Loss and dam­age are al­ready clear in the ag­gres­sive ero­sion of our coast­line and the bleach­ing of our coral reefs.  Tack­ling loss and dam­age must re­main a crit­i­cal and core is­sue of any glob­al cli­mate ac­tion frame­work.

We are in­creas­ing­ly con­cerned about our abil­i­ty to ad­dress this is­sue giv­en the well-known dif­fi­cul­ty in ac­cess­ing fi­nanc­ing for such projects. We need funds like the Green Cli­mate Fund to es­tab­lish spe­cif­ic streams for loss and dam­age fi­nance to en­sure that this is pri­or­i­tized in the same way as mit­i­ga­tion and adap­ta­tion.  Fur­ther, there must be eq­ui­table bal­ance be­tween pub­lic fi­nance for mit­i­ga­tion and adap­ta­tion.

COP26 will be a crit­i­cal point at which we can as­sess whether our cli­mate fi­nance flows are head­ed in the right di­rec­tion.  In this re­gard, the US an­nounce­ment that it would dou­ble its cli­mate fi­nance sup­port, is par­tic­u­lar­ly in­spir­ing. This is the type of bold ac­tion all donor coun­tries need to con­sid­er in the weeks ahead

The mo­bi­liza­tion of pri­vate fi­nance will al­so be crit­i­cal for se­cur­ing the ur­gent­ly need­ed in­vest­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly for the trans­for­ma­tion of our en­er­gy sec­tors.

Mr. Pres­i­dent,

We must com­plete the work to im­ple­ment the En­hanced Trans­paren­cy Frame­work.    Even as a small coun­try with lim­it­ed re­sources, we will make every ef­fort to re­port to the re­quired stan­dard, with some as­sis­tance, of course. We ex­pect oth­ers to do the same. This is the deal we made in Paris.  We can­not go back on it now.

Mr. Pres­i­dent,

As an econ­o­my large­ly based on oil and gas and petro­chem­i­cals, we in Trinidad and To­ba­go rec­og­nize our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in tran­si­tion­ing, over rea­son­able and man­age­able time, to net ze­ro. We have set very am­bi­tious tar­gets aimed at di­ver­si­fy­ing our econ­o­my.  We have em­barked up­on am­bi­tious plans to re­duce emis­sions and build cli­mate re­silience, but we will need help.

These mea­sures in­clude the fol­low­ing:

•       We are in the process of es­tab­lish­ing the largest util­i­ty-scale so­lar re­new­able en­er­gy project in the Caribbean with a ca­pac­i­ty of 112 megawatts, ac­count­ing for 10% of our pow­er needs, and we plan to in­crease this com­ple­ment to 30% by 2030;

•       We have de­vel­oped an e-mo­bil­i­ty pol­i­cy and we are al­ready im­ple­ment­ing mea­sures to phase-in elec­tric ve­hi­cles.

•       We rec­og­nize the need to ad­dress the so­cio-eco­nom­ic is­sues as­so­ci­at­ed with the en­er­gy tran­si­tion and have de­vel­oped a Just Tran­si­tion of the Work­force Pol­i­cy aimed at reskilling, re­tool­ing and de­vel­op­ing new ca­pac­i­ty for a low-car­bon econ­o­my;

•       We are pur­su­ing mea­sures to fa­cil­i­tate in­vest­ment in green hy­dro­gen to pro­vide green feed­stock to our vi­brant petro­chem­i­cal in­dus­try.

•       We in­tend to ex­plore the use of in­dus­try-gen­er­at­ed CO₂ in pos­si­ble car­bon se­ques­tra­tion projects.

Mr. Pres­i­dent, COP26 has cre­at­ed great ex­pec­ta­tions and height­ened hopes for cli­mate am­bi­tion for Trinidad and To­ba­go. This am­bi­tion in­cludes re­duc­ing green­house gas emis­sions and pro­vid­ing much need­ed cli­mate fi­nance to en­able vul­ner­a­ble coun­tries to adapt to cli­mate im­pacts, and as­sist in trans­form­ing their economies to more sus­tain­able, low-car­bon paths.

Be­yond the rhetoric and pledges, every coun­try needs to be se­ri­ous about ur­gent ac­tion in this decade. Trinidad and To­ba­go is com­mit­ted to work­ing with all coun­tries in the mul­ti­lat­er­al frame­work to en­sure a safe and se­cure world for those yet to be born.  It is my sin­cere hope that we will all be able to look back at COP 26, and the com­mit­ments and progress made here in Glas­gow, as key steps to­wards a health­i­er sal­vage­able plan­et Earth.

Let’s work for sur­vival, of ours and all species.

Let’s not choose ex­tinc­tion!

Mr Pres­i­dent, I thank you.