GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, T&T has not con­sid­ered the in­clu­sion of green bonds, nor the use of the car­bon mar­kets as pos­si­ble in­no­v­a­tive sources of fi­nanc­ing that can be in­te­grat­ed in­to the na­tion­al bud­getary process, large­ly as a re­sult of the de­pen­dence on the en­er­gy sec­tor for pros­per­i­ty.

How­ev­er, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Bri­an Man­ning said yes­ter­day giv­en the need to pur­sue eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion ag­gres­sive­ly and tran­si­tion away from fos­sil fu­els as agreed to in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, both green bonds and car­bon cred­its have the po­ten­tial to be­come cor­ner­stones of na­tion­al cli­mate fi­nance strate­gies.

Man­ning was speak­ing at yes­ter­day’s Green In­fra­struc­ture Con­fer­ence 2025, which was held at the Arthur Lok-Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness in Mount Hope.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he said green bonds can al­so play a cru­cial role in fa­cil­i­tat­ing cli­mate-for-debt swaps, there­by of­fer­ing a pow­er­ful mech­a­nism to si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly ad­dress cli­mate change and sov­er­eign debt is­sues.

Man­ning out­lined that these in­stru­ments can be in­te­grat­ed in­to the na­tion­al bud­get in the fol­low­ing ways:

• Green bonds for pub­lic in­vest­ment: Funds raised through green bonds can be ear­marked for large-scale in­fra­struc­ture projects, such as re­new­able en­er­gy grids, sus­tain­able trans­port, and cli­mate-re­silient ur­ban de­vel­op­ment;

• Car­bon cred­its for rev­enue gen­er­a­tion: By es­tab­lish­ing ro­bust car­bon mar­kets and pric­ing mech­a­nisms, coun­tries can cre­ate a steady stream of rev­enue for rein­vest­ment in cli­mate adap­ta­tion and mit­i­ga­tion projects;

• Link­ing In­stru­ments: Com­bin­ing the two tools can cre­ate syn­er­gis­tic ef­fects—for ex­am­ple, is­su­ing green bonds to fi­nance projects that al­so gen­er­ate car­bon cred­its, cre­at­ing a vir­tu­ous cy­cle of sus­tain­abil­i­ty and in­vest­ment.

As a first step, Man­ning said the req­ui­site pol­i­cy, leg­isla­tive, in­sti­tu­tion­al and ad­min­is­tra­tive en­abling en­vi­ron­ment need to be cre­at­ed. That would en­hance in­vestor con­fi­dence and par­tic­u­lar­ly in­cen­tivise the in­volve­ment of the pri­vate sec­tor in pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships.

He said while T&T in­tends to em­bark on that frame­work a few is­sues would have to be ad­dressed first in­clud­ing de­vel­op­ing a frame­work that de­fines the scope, ob­jec­tives, and el­i­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria for the green projects the bonds will fi­nance.

Man­ning added that frame­work must spec­i­fy the types of projects el­i­gi­ble for fund­ing, such as re­new­able en­er­gy, sus­tain­able trans­port, clean en­er­gy and en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy.

Al­so, he said the gov­ern­ment would need an in­de­pen­dent ex­ter­nal re­view or cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to en­sure that the green bond aligns with the stan­dards and cri­te­ria for green fi­nanc­ing.

NGC chair­man Dr Joseph Ish­mael Khan, who al­so spoke, em­pha­sised that coun­tries in the re­gion need to in­vest in build­ing in­fra­struc­tur­al re­silience, to sur­vive the cli­mate dis­as­ters that are al­ready on their doorsteps, and adapt their built en­vi­ron­ment to chang­ing cli­mate con­di­tions.

“We al­so need to in­vest in low­er­ing the car­bon foot­print of our eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ties, through more sus­tain­able en­er­gy, pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion,” he added.

Khan said for the re­gion to build its in­fra­struc­tur­al re­silience and im­ple­ment projects for car­bon re­duc­tion, it needs fi­nan­cial sup­port - and in some cas­es leg­isla­tive re­form.