"Alone we can do so lit­tle, to­geth­er we can do so much."
- He­len Keller

Pol­lu­tion! While many may think pol­lu­tion harms on­ly na­ture, they are wrong. Pol­lu­tion harms you! You and your home are not sealed off from pol­lu­tion. In fact, it is one of this era’s great­est bur­dens - the en­tire world is cry­ing out that our haven is no longer what it used to be be­cause of pol­lu­tion caused by the ac­tions of hu­man be­ings. Pol­lu­tion is the in­tro­duc­tion of con­t­a­m­i­nants in­to the nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment that cause ad­verse change and can take the form of chem­i­cal sub­stances or en­er­gy, such as noise, heat, or light.

Recog­nis­ing this fact, Trinidad and To­ba­go is com­mit­ted to re­duc­ing its Car­bon foot­print. This coun­try is con­sid­ered to be one of the most in­dus­tri­alised in the Com­mon­wealth Caribbean and as ear­ly as the 1970’s Trinidad and To­ba­go jumped in­to ac­tion by join­ing the rest of the world in sign­ing agree­ments that would help ad­dress some of the prob­lems brought about by in­dus­tri­al­i­sa­tion. These agree­ments are called Mul­ti­lat­er­al En­vi­ron­men­tal Agree­ments (MEAs).

How do MEAs work? Well, coun­tries get to­geth­er and de­cide on ac­tions they will take to clean up or im­prove ar­eas of the en­vi­ron­ment which are neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ing life on earth. Some are soft laws, such as the 17 Unit­ed Na­tions Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs) which is an ur­gent call for ac­tion by all coun­tries in a glob­al part­ner­ship.

These SDGs in­clude: Clean wa­ter and san­i­ta­tion; Af­ford­able and clean en­er­gy; Sus­tain­able cities and com­mu­ni­ties; Re­spon­si­ble con­sump­tion and pro­duc­tion; Cli­mate ac­tion; Life be­low wa­ter; and Life on land.

While these are not legal­ly bind­ing, their prin­ci­ples serve as a guide when de­vel­op­ing poli­cies and ac­tion plans. Oth­er agree­ments how­ev­er, such as Con­ven­tions or Treaties are legal­ly bind­ing.

Head of the Mul­ti­lat­er­al En­vi­ron­men­tal Agree­ments Unit at the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment, Kis­han Ku­mars­ingh, ex­plained that Trinidad and To­ba­go is a rat­i­fied sig­na­to­ry to many MEAs re­lat­ed to cli­mate change and oth­er en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues.

T&T is com­mit­ted to the re­duc­tion of pol­lu­tion.

Such MEAs are:

● The Unit­ed Na­tions Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change (UN­FC­CC) - The ob­jec­tive of the Con­ven­tion is to achieve a sta­bi­liza­tion of the con­cen­tra­tion of green­house gas­es in the at­mos­phere at a lev­el that pre­vents dan­ger­ous an­thro­pogenic in­ter­fer­ence in the cli­mate sys­tem. The Con­ven­tion pro­vides a gen­er­al frame­work for in­ter­gov­ern­men­tal ef­forts to ad­dress the chal­lenges posed by cli­mate change.

● The Paris Agree­ment - The Paris Agree­ment, a sub­sidiary of the UN­FC­CC and is a legal­ly bind­ing in­ter­na­tion­al treaty that aims to ad­dress cli­mate change by lim­it­ing glob­al warm­ing to well be­low 2, prefer­ably to 1.5 de­grees Cel­sius, com­pared to pre-in­dus­tri­al lev­els.

● The Con­ven­tion on Bi­o­log­i­cal Di­ver­si­ty - This Con­ven­tion is ded­i­cat­ed to pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment. The Con­ven­tion recog­nis­es that bi­o­log­i­cal di­ver­si­ty is about more than plants, an­i­mals and mi­cro-or­gan­isms and their ecosys­tems – it is al­so about peo­ple and our need for food se­cu­ri­ty, med­i­cines, fresh air and wa­ter, shel­ter, and a clean and healthy en­vi­ron­ment in which to live.

● The Basel Con­ven­tion - An in­ter­na­tion­al treaty that was de­signed to re­duce the move­ments of haz­ardous waste be­tween na­tions, and specif­i­cal­ly to pre­vent trans­fer of haz­ardous waste from de­vel­oped to less de­vel­oped coun­tries.

● The Stock­holm Con­ven­tion - A glob­al treaty that aims to pro­tect hu­man health and the en­vi­ron­ment from the ef­fects of per­sis­tent or­gan­ic pol­lu­tants (POPs).

● The Unit­ed Na­tions Con­ven­tion to Com­bat De­ser­ti­fi­ca­tion (UNC­CD) - The sole legal­ly bind­ing in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment link­ing en­vi­ron­ment and de­vel­op­ment to sus­tain­able land man­age­ment. Sign­ing on to this MEA helps pre­vent thou­sands of dif­fer­ent types of plants and an­i­mals from be­com­ing ex­tinct at a rapid rate. With­out such pro­tec­tion of land and bio­di­ver­si­ty, hu­mans may even­tu­al­ly be­come ex­tinct.

Our coun­try has made great strides in these MEAs, be­com­ing some­what of a role mod­el. As Mr. Ku­mars­ingh not­ed, Trinidad and To­ba­go has been recog­nised in more than one of the MEAs as a leader in terms of the ne­go­ti­a­tions process, for ex­am­ple on the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col, the Cli­mate Change Con­ven­tion and the Chem­i­cals and Waste Con­ven­tions.

“And we have been recog­nised as lead­ing in many ar­eas on ac­tion,” he point­ed out. “In cli­mate ac­tion, for ex­am­ple, we were the first small is­land state in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean to sub­mit our con­tri­bu­tions to the Paris Agree­ment. We were among the first to de­vel­op a mon­i­tor­ing, re­port­ing and ver­i­fi­ca­tion sys­tem which is now be­ing used as a case study for oth­er coun­tries. We were among the first to de­vel­op a just tran­si­tion pol­i­cy and an e-mo­bil­i­ty pol­i­cy that aims at look­ing at sus­tain­able trans­port," he said.

"So, we have been lead­ing the way in many ar­eas of im­ple­ment­ing these MEAs that are now form­ing the tem­plate for em­u­la­tion by oth­er coun­tries. We are be­ing looked up­on and called up­on to some­times pro­vide ad­vice on how oth­er coun­tries can im­ple­ment some of these oblig­a­tions un­der the var­i­ous MEAs," he added.

He fur­ther point­ed out, “Trinidad and To­ba­go recog­nis­es that it has to play a re­spon­si­ble part in con­tribut­ing to the so­lu­tions to these glob­al prob­lems en­shrined in these var­i­ous le­gal in­stru­ments and Con­ven­tions and as a rat­i­fied par­ty, with it comes oblig­a­tions un­der these var­i­ous Con­ven­tions. So, we’re talk­ing about na­tion­al ac­tion and glob­al ben­e­fit. The oblig­a­tions are be­ing met through ac­tions tak­en and co­or­di­nat­ed by the Mul­ti­lat­er­al En­vi­ron­men­tal Agree­ments Unit at the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment through project im­ple­men­ta­tion, sourced fund­ing from var­i­ous mul­ti­lat­er­al donors and in­ter­na­tion­al funds.”

We are ex­treme­ly proud of our coun­try’s com­mit­ment to a green­er, clean­er, health­i­er earth and ul­ti­mate­ly our sur­vival. Ded­i­cat­ed to its on­go­ing com­mit­ments un­der the MEAs, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s gov­ern­ment works hand in hand with the pri­vate sec­tor, non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies to do its part in mit­i­gat­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues. We salute all these or­gan­i­sa­tions for their com­mit­ment to the en­vi­ron­ment.

For more in­for­ma­tion on en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues and ac­tiv­i­ties in T&T, please join our fo­cal point net­work by com­plet­ing the Google form found on the En­vi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­cy and Plan­ning Di­vi­sion’s Face­book and In­sta­gram pages.