Thursday, November 26 2009

The decision to place emphasis on the internationally troubling issue of climate change at this week’s Commonwealth Heads of overnment Meeting (CHOGM) and establish a Commonwealth position on the problem ahead of next month’s United Nations climate Change Talks in Copenhagen, Denmark has thrust Trinidad and Tobago into the spotlight.

CHOGM, which will cover three days will be formally declared open at the National Academy for Performing Arts in Port-of-Spain tomorrow (November 27).

Already, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, France’s President, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the Danish Prime Minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, have been invited as special guests of the CHOGM meeting to take part in the deliberations with special reference to climate change. The Danish Prime Minister will be chairing the UN talks in Copenhagen.

The climate change content of CHOGM is of particular significance to Caricom and other small island developing states within and without the Commonwealth. These states will remain under increasing threat of rising sea levels and severe damage to their economies unless developed nations are prepared to continue to abide by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed to in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 to effectively reduce the degree of their greenhouse emissions.

While many developed nations have complied, particularly with respect to the production of chlorofluorcarbons (CFC) used extensively in aerosol propellants, it is increasingly clear that several have not. We had referred earlier to the negative impact on climate change on small island developing states. The minuses have included land erosion caused by abnormally rising tide levels provoked by global warming, and the adverse effect on fish stocks triggering migration.

Meanwhile, the use of fossil fuels such as coal, along with the cutting down of vast areas of forests for their wood and the burning of this wood to make coal continue to impact adversely on the ozone layer. While some of this is done as a local initiative for domestic use a not insubstantial portion is done on behalf of economic interests in a few of the developed nations. On the positive side, the increasing use of liquefied natural gas (LNG) — a clean fuel — produced in significant quantities in Trinidad and Tobago, among other countries, is not only of no harm to the ozone layer but taxes derived from its production and exports have been extremely good for the country’s revenue position and foreign exchange earnings.

Trinidad and Tobago is the principal supplier of liquefied natural gas to the United States, providing it on an ongoing basis with more that 70 percent of its LNG imports. It is not something we should forget, especially as the world yearns for a cleaner supply of fuel.