Port of Spain, Trinidad: The Honourable Camille Robinson-Regis, Minister of Planning and Development is announcing to the public that Trinidad and Tobago is represented at the UN's key Climate Change Conference.
A delegation from the Ministry of Planning and Development will be at the opening in Madrid, Spain on Monday December 2, to represent Trinidad and Tobago at the Twenty Fifth Conference of Parties (COP 25) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from 2nd – 13th December 2019.
The Conference of Parties (COP) is the main summit that brings into focus the global response to climate change. Consisting of 197 countries that are parties to the treaty, COP is the supreme decision-making body of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
COP25 will be the last COP before the defining year of 2020, when many nations must submit new climate action plans. A key objective of this conference is to complete several matters with respect to the full implementation of the Paris Climate Change Agreement in accordance with the guidelines contained in the decisions from the Twenty Fourth Conference of Parties (COP 24). Minister Robinson-Regis states that in light of this, the Government of T&T has begun preparations for 2020. Trinidad and Tobago through the Multilateral Environmental Agreements Unit (MEAU) of the Planning Ministry is one of the first nations globally to launch its Monitoring Verification and Reporting (MRV) system in March of 2019 to gather climate change data for T&T. The MEAU has also begun talks with the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to develop a project for further implementation of the MRV.
Trinidad and Tobago has the key role of negotiating on behalf of the Alliance of Small island States (AOSIS), and as a Small Island Developing State, TT must continue to ensure that its interests are well represented and elucidated at this fora along with other like-minded Parties such as Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and the Group of 77 and China (G77 and China).
The Ministry of Planning and Development, under which the portfolio of the national environment falls, has overall responsibility to manage the national response to climate change. Attendance at the COP25 forms part of the Ministry’s commitment to placing the environment at centre of economic and social development, which is Theme 5 of the National Development Strategy, Vision 2030.