European Capacity Building Initiative- Regional Workshop

ECBI Workshop Participants 2019 (Tobago)

European Capacity Building Initiative’s (ECBI) First Regional Workshop for the Caribbean on climate change negotiation took place on October 30th and 31st 2019 at the Magdalena Grand Beach and Golf Resort in Lowlands, Tobago. Chaired by the Director of the  ECBI, Dr. Benito Müller, participants were exposed to a number of essential presentations and sessions on climate change efforts. Sir Carlos Fuller, International and Regional Liaison Officer of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center and a senior negotiator for Belize started the workshop with a session on the science of climate change. Sir Fuller also presented on “Loss and Damage Due to Climate Change”, which was particularly relevant as it is an item on the agenda for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNCCC).

Following Sir Fuller, Mr. Kishan Kumarsingh, Head of the Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEA) Unit at the Ministry of Planning and Development (MPD) and lead Climate Change Negotiator for Trinidad and Tobago presented on the politics of climate change and gave a synopsis of the geopolitics of climate change and the history of various MEAs and challenges of dealing with climate change on the international forefront. 

Some of the key points to note during Mr. Kumarsingh’s presentation were:

• Geopolitics- each country has the right to development and right to its resources
• Energy drives economies but recently it has been seen that you can realize economic growth without a concomitant rise in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
• Richer countries of the North have greater historical responsibility due to their level of emissions
• This is unfortunate as there is a great disparity between the developed and developing countries, and it is the developing countries of the South that are more susceptible to the impacts of climate change
• There is no international police and countries cannot be forced to act, given the principle of sovereignty, so therefore all actions are solely based on political will.
• It is of the interest of politicians and governments to address climate change as it has been leading to socioeconomic destruction

Ms. Rueanna Haynes of Trinidad and Tobago presented on Transparency under the Paris Agreement which was then followed by Dr. Müller’s final segment on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement for a more comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms for international cooperation when implementing the NDCs. These presentations were integral to the mock negotiation sessions as the information provided was key to making the most informed decisions. Participants were given various countries, mostly from the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), and were engaged in a highly realistic negotiation session which was chaired by Mr. Kumarsingh. To lend even more realism, Mr. Kumarsingh was carded to be the actual chair for the particular item of the mock session’s agenda in COP25. The sessions were as close to the COP negotiations that novices would have been able to experience as there were debates with senior negotiators on real topics.

Snapshot of participants during workshop activity

ECBI Participants pose with their Certificate of Completion