conference magazine - Caribbean Environmental Health Institute

Are our laws and institutions ready for climate change? by
Judy Daniel
As pressure mounts on the developed world to curb greenhouse
gases, the contribution of developing countries to climate change
is being assessed. The reality is that just 20 percent of the world’s
contributors account for about 90 percent of global emissions.
Negotiations at last December’s United Nations Climate Change
Conference in Copenhagen resulted in the Copenhagen Accord,
an interim international agreement that includes $30 billion in
financing by wealthy nations to help developing nations such as
ours curb their emissions over the next three years (with a goal of
increasing funding up to $100 billion by 2020).
Of interest also is that the US is poised to introduce Cap-and
Trade legislation, a pertinent aspect which allows their facilities to
meet up to 15% of their emissions limits by purchasing credits on
the international emission trading market. With the right planning
small island Caribbean states could position themselves to obtain
the assistance needed to adapt to climate change without compromising
our national development. At the local and regional
level climate change policy still falls within the remit of environmental
and natural resources management agencies while for
wealthy nations because of the significance of energy to their
national economies it is undoubtedly a “make or break” economic
issue that is housed in robust central agencies.
Climate change as a phenomenon promises to negatively impact
all of our resources and national development. Yet our laws and
institutions remain set in a pre-climate era perhaps awaiting a jolt
of reality and sense of remorse at how we could have availed
ourselves of resources to stem these impacts. We must reform
our thinking. Climate change is an enormous and complex national
development issue with which we must treat through an
appropriate institutional framework that is equipped to negotiate
our climate future, mindful of our main objective - to secure our
economic future. Given what’s at stake, are our environmental
management agencies the best institutional venues for leading
climate change issues? At a minimum should they be the sole
venue? Most importantly, what are the plausible alternatives?
The challenge of climate change requires a permanent change in
the way our societies work and necessarily the way our laws and
institutions are set out. This paper examines why we must act
now, and proposes how the laws and institutions of Caribbean
small islands can be designed to function in the wake of climate
change and how we should now move forward.
Sustaining the development of industry in Trinidad and Tobago:
Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency and Green Manufacturing
by Marc Sandy
Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) possesses considerable proved reserves
of crude oil and natural gas, which have traditionally allowed
access to energy for industrial use at low costs, relative to
the rest of the Caribbean region. However, the future growth and
sustainability of T&T’s manufacturing sector will depend critically
on its ability to move towards more sustainable methods of production.
This paper will articulate positions that seek to clearly define the
role, elements and parameters around which policy frameworks may
be developed for renewable energy, energy efficiency, waste reduction
and recycling in the Trinidad and Tobago manufacturing sector. It
will also elaborate on the efforts being made, both in the public and
private sector, to ‘Green’ our industries, for the benefit of the environment,
the business sector and the wider national community. Though
developed for the T&T local context, the backdrop to this paper is
regional sustainable development. Conclusions will therefore be
drawn as to how the country can then go further to participate in energy
integration and deeper regional trade agreements, to enhance
the sustainable growth of the Caribbean. It is instructive to note the
environment within which the sector exists at present and, by extension,
the emphasis as far as policy, legislation and implementation are
concerned. Firstly, the legislative environment does not directly encourage
or incentivize manufacturers to become more energy efficient.
Secondly, there are inherent problems in the way in which policies
are implemented locally, when one considers the infrastructural
bottlenecks that have kept T&T’s cost of doing business high and
stymied its competitiveness.
Thirdly and in particular, the low cost of fossil fuel energy in T&T has
led to a relatively languid approach to renewable energy development
and industrial utilization, and the country lags behind many of its Caribbean
counterparts.
The overall objective of this paper is therefore to build a vision that
sees Trinidad and Tobago in sync with the regional thrust towards
energy efficiency, waste minimization and environmentally sustainable
manufacturing. The realization of this vision, it is hoped, will placed
the wider Caribbean on solid ground as we endeavour to surge beyond
our development challenges.
Our Planet : Using innovation to highlight the need to use and
manage natural resources efficiently in the Caribbean by Pablo
Rosenthal and Sarah Adams
Our Planet will be an innovative educational/information centre for the
Caribbean region which will raise public awareness on the efficient
use, management and conservation of natural resources and protection
of biodiversity. The centre will use high technologies in an interactive
environment to engage visitors so that they "live" the impacts of a
changing climate and poorly managed natural resources and understand
the solutions which are presented to them.
Beginning with a hologram of a leading environmental figure welcoming
visitors to the centre and a hologram of the world illustrating the
predicted changing climate, the global context will be presented followed
by its impacts, specifically in the Caribbean region. Visitors will
be led through an immersive environment to experience first hand the
impacts of a changing climate (extreme weather events, rising waters,
loss of biodiversity), will take part in interactive displays to measure
their carbon footprint and discover solutions (renewable energies,
energy efficiency, water and waste management, recycling, protection
of biodiversity) which they can implement.
Our Planet will be the first high technology centre of this kind in the
world and will start receiving visitors in St Lucia from the beginning of
2011. Our Planet will also be working closely with the government of
St Lucia and other local stakeholders to ensure that the centre is involved
in the island’s educational programmes as the high technology
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FIFTH BIENNIAL CARIBBEAN ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM AND EXHIBITION