COP26 and T&T’s Climate Action
An excerpt from United Nations in Trinidad and Tobago
“When world leaders gather in Glasgow, Scotland next month for the UN’s watershed COP26 summit, Trinidad and Tobago will be represented among them, led by the Ministry of Planning and Development. The summit will take place on the heels of the UN’s 76th anniversary on October 24th, another milestone moment in global history.
Since T&T’s admission into the United Nations in 1962, the UN-TT partnership has focused on development assistance for disaster risk mitigation, human development, social development, education and health – especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Next month at COP26, the UN-TT relationship continues its sharp focus on climate action.
Taking bold steps to fight climate change must take on new urgency given the concerning findings of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report (AR6). The report makes it clear that this era is one of the worst warming periods in history and constitutes the loudest wake up call to date for meaningful, and actionable, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. As the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, put it, “We are on the edge of an abyss. And we are moving into the wrong direction.””