Plan to tackle climate change

Please note that I write what we could do about it if we had the will, the determination and the resources to follow Professor Speth’s advice.

“So the bottom line,” he continued,” is we face enormous earth shaking change unprecedented in human history if we allow this to happen, if we allow this ‘business as usual’ to continue.

Professor Speth implied we will be the first to feel the effects of Climate Change, and, being small, we will suffer most. He urged us “to assert yourselves as never before the need is urgent because you are the front line (victims). Think what you can do about it, what can the other front-line victims (low-lying islands in the Pacific, the polar regions, regions threatened with drought) do about it?”

Professor Speth gave us a split second to do some thinking before setting out his own suggestions for our guidance. His advice? Use more of our natural gas rather than oil or coal (of which we have almost none) and use it more efficiently. It stands to reason that the less we use, the longer our gas and oil reserves will last to keep us in (relative) comfort.

Which brings us back to the cost of converting cars from gasoline/diesel to natural gas, and the fact that natural gas filling stations are few and far between in TT. As in his book, “Red Sky at Morning” Gus Speth urges the US administration to invest in energy-saving, energy efficient technology, so we, for our part could lobby government to extend natural gas lines to filling stations throughout TT to subsidise the cost of conversion to natural gas for existing cars and ban the import of gas-and-diesel guzzling SUVs that are so popular in “conspicuous consumption” circles in this land.

“There must be a move from net deforest to net afforestation in the world,” was his next piece of advice. Government made a start with the National Reafforestation and Watershed Rehabilitation Programme employing groups in local communities to plant trees, providing them with tools and the necessary expertise in silviculture and private individuals, landowners investing in timber are also putting in their two cents’ worth to delay global warming.

Yet, at the same time, the National Energy Corporation flouted the EMA’s terms for a Certificate of Environmental Clearance (CEC) by laying waste to hectares of bush to clear land for the La Brea Industrial Estate – well before the industries designated to occupy the site had themselves got CECs.

The Professor made no mention of the Three R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, perhaps because he knew the EMA had an ongoing public education campaign to persuade us all to use less, reuse what we can and recycle what we can’t . . .

Professor Speth then tackled the main thrust of his lecture which was to organise all of SIDS (not just in the Caribbean) in a well-managed co-ordinated campaign to force the main villains of global warming in the developed and the developing world to sign the Kyoto protocol to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

“There’s strength in numbers,” he said. “You need an action campaign, with a leadership committee to give it direction. You need some of the best people you could possibly put together to form a team or teams – a steering committee to drive this effort and you need finance to be sure this effort doesn’t shortchange the future.”

Having dropped that bombshell, he proceeded to outline plan for the action campaign.

“You need to develop a message and a strategy for the campaign to move forward and a lot has to be directed at the US to get the US citizens aware of what’s happening here and what’s going to happen to you and what’s going to happen to the Caribbean. You can help awaken America to the risks and people will respond.”

Next he said the leaders should “Go to Washington and find the best firms that work to change political opinion; get access to political leaders in Washington. You get real first-rate talent to bring your message to the American people telling of the devastating effect of climate change.

It’s a human rights issue. It’s the right to life, it’s the right not to be devastated

“The US is responsible for 30 percent of Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” he stressed.

“Then there are the effects on tourism,” he continued. “ US citizens like to take vacations in the islands but if they are devastated, tourism industry dies. Let people know you will suffer from their actions. Point out the economic costs of humanitarian relief after a hurricane or typhoon.”