 Hello and welcome to TV30, a production of the Government Information Service. I am Jesse Leance from the Department of Sustainable Development. I'm joined by Mr. Carl Monte Augustine, Research Officer within the Division of Forests and Lands and Project Coordinator of IWECO. I'm also joined by my colleague, Ms. Jermaine Missol, Sustainable Development and Environment Officer with main responsibility for climate change reporting. Today we are talking climate action, the road to the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference coming up in November in Egypt. It's COP 27, commonly known as, and we are speaking today to two of the individuals who will be a part of the St. Lucia delegation to that mission. Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much for joining. Good day. Wonderful. I mean, I want to start with you for the benefit of our viewership. What is COP, and more specifically, how does it have the end COP 27, this time around? And why is this annual summit so important, particularly this year? Who usually attends this activity and when will it be held? Wow, that's many questions. In one. Okay, so I'll start with what is COP? So the term COP really means the Conference of Parties and it's the formal meeting of parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, what we call the UNFCCC for short, and that is a global environmental treaty where countries, you know, they recognize there is a problem, so they have come together to address the issue of climate change. COP is also referred to as the supreme decision-making body under the Convention. So every year they come together to review what progress they've made in terms of achieving the goal under the Convention, which is really to limit climate change and to discuss and deliberate on what actions decisions can be taken to further make progress on tackling climate change. So that is COP in a nutshell. The name 27 suggests, this is the 27th meeting of the Conference of Parties. It is usually held in November, so this year it will be held from the 6th to the 18th of November in Shamalshik, Egypt. You asked who usually attends COP? There are different groups who usually attend COP. Of course you will have representatives from the country parties, whether it be technical officers, whether it be the minister, the permanent secretary, but you also have different groupings. You have civil society groups attending, you have NGOs attending, you have youth, indigenous people, so a cross-sectional group of people attending. Remind me what we're doing. Well, you've essentially encapsulated. You mentioned earlier reversal of climate change. What does that look like? What is COP supposed to accomplish when it comes to execution? Well really and truly the ultimate goal is to try to reduce our global greenhouse gas emissions and try to assist, you know, developed countries have been tasked to assisting developing countries in better adapting to climate change. So COP and this COP particularly is very important because the scientific body, the international panel on climate change, which is the scientific body responsible for producing scientific assessments on climate change, this year and last year they put forth I think a total of three reports on the state of climate change or the science behind climate change. And what they found is that we're really not in a good place when it comes to, you know, reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. We're on a dangerous trajectory. So and it specifies that, you know, we need to take bold and immediate action if we are to really address climate change. And so this COP is really important in bringing parties together in getting them to move beyond just making commitments and taking the necessary action, bold action with the scale, the urgency that is needed in order for us to, you know, meet our goals under the convention. Okay. We're going to come to some of the action in just a bit. But first, Mr. Augustine, could you speak to us about, I mean, for the benefit of our viewers, what is climate change? We hear these taglines, these words, these phrases, greenhouse gases and all these things, but define climate change for us as we continue on. Okay. So good afternoon again and thanks for having me. Climate change. Now, climate and weather sometimes gets mixed up, right? So weather is the atmospheric conditions at a particular time, right? So for example, this afternoon, this afternoon, you would say, but it is probably overcast like drizzle. So climate would be those conditions over many, many years. They are trends. So that is why, for example, we say in the temperate areas, you would have the four seasons because you have expected type of atmospheric conditions at certain times of the year. And that's why you would say, for example, we in the tropics have a dry and a wet season. Now, this is actually controlled, as you see, the if we have our, the atmosphere, right? The exchange of gases, the recycling of the gases like oxygen and carbon and so on and the other derivatives in it, right? So what you find is over time, what we have noticed is by the actions of man, right? The changes that we are seeing have been accelerated. So you find there has been a marked temperature rise since industrialization. So things like the 1700s, the 1800s, they have been doing keeping records of things like average temperature, of things like precipitation over the years and how it is distributed during the year. And what they have observed is there have been a marked change from industrialization when we started burning more fossil fuel in the form in to actually drive the industry that created certain sectors and modern life as we know as human beings. And as we have modernized, we have been releasing more and more carbon into the atmosphere. As we pull more people out of poverty, right, we have gone from 2 billion to 4 billion right now. We are approaching 9 billion people and let's imagine all of these people are consuming. All of these people have to travel, commute from daily activities, people, the industry that actually support life and we are emitting more and more carbon and these gases that are known as greenhouse gases, which tend to increase our temperature, right. So what climate change is dealing with is, yes, there are certain processes that will happen in the absence of man. So for example, when you have things like volcanic eruptions like what we had in St. Vincent, this would contribute to the amount of carbon that you have released in the atmosphere as well as gases like sulfur and so on. However, there is a clear scientific proof that this has been made with by the activities of man. The wanton consumption of carbon-based energy has contributed and what we have seen now is the weather, the climate is going out of work. So for example, in St. Lucia, we used to have rain every 3 to 4 days in the 80s, 70s, 80s. So much so that agriculture used to be underpinned by rain fed. Right now you see that it has extended from 3 to 4, 7 to 10 and now we see that sometimes we go 2 to 3 weeks regularly without any rain and when we do get rain now, we probably get 2 or 3 months worth of rain in a couple of days, right. So what we're saying is climate change is real. Climate change is actually something that has been made a lot worse by the actions of man and climate change is the new normal in that it is going to have an impact on all aspects of life, right. So all sectors have to be wary from, because people may say, but why is somebody who is a forester in that natural resource management realm, why is he involved in climate change? However, climate change is something that is going to impact all sectors. What has also been proven is there are certain activities, certain sector that are important to mitigate some of the impact of climate change. So for example, forest and the actions of forestry, right, in terms of more trees, more forest cover. So you protect the land as you get in more and more storms, but you are also now forest is one of the few proven ways of removing carbon and storing it safely, right, where it is not having an impact on the average temperature nor on the climatic conditions. So understood. So I'm guessing that we all viewers have a better understanding of climate change, the concept of climate change, a change in our atmosphere, temperatures over a long period of time. And we cannot, we cannot, especially when we see what is happening, where sometimes we have, we just got three or four weeks of it. And then we have, we may have another couple of weeks of just no press. Right, right, right, spell. Now you mentioned the burning of fossil fuels earlier. Obviously, Jermaine, the highest emitters of fossil fuels, St. Lucia is not among them. There are the countries, the highest offenders, I would say, of burning fossil fuels are the developed countries, including China, Russia, the US, India, et cetera. What commitments have these countries made at the top level towards reducing their emissions and how forthcoming have they been? OK, so I guess I cannot speak to the historical commitments, but I can use the last cop as a basis, for example, where we had many, many, many commitments being made. For example, we had countries, including those that some of those that you mentioned, signing on to what is called the global methane pledge, which seeks to reduce methane emissions. Of course, methane is a very potent greenhouse gas. We had pledges from countries promising or committing, I would say, to phase down the use of fossil fuels or to not make new investments in fossil fuels. Also countries pledging, you know, to reduce or cut down on their fossil fuel subsidies. And we also had countries coming forth with new targets, new national targets on what they plan to do and how they they plan to reduce their emissions, for example, India, which is higher there in emitting greenhouse gas emissions. They have pledged to become net zero by 20, 20, 20, 70. And interestingly, we also saw a pledge or a commitment, I should mostly an agreement, between the U.S. and China to work collectively, noting, you know, their responsibility and their contributions to climate change, to work collaboratively, to take action and to address climate change, essentially. So we did see many commitments coming out of last year's COP and obviously some countries are making strides to to to do what they said they would do. What will be happening next year is what is called the global stock tick. That will be taking place in 2023. And the aim of the global stock tick is to, you know, take stock of where we are in terms of climate change. How well are we doing in terms of, you know, reducing our emissions, in terms of meeting the targets that we have set out for ourselves. So we will get a better sense of how the world is doing in terms of addressing climate change. But as far as I know, the last report that was released at COP in terms of the commitments that were put forth, that report deemed these commitments to I should say, they would not meet the global targets that we have we have set. OK, I want to talk a little bit about the net zero in just a bit. Some of the challenges may be associated with it, because just as the myths and misconceptions surrounding climate change, there are also the concerns about this feasibility of going net zero. Before we go to break, I just wanted to briefly address this next question. What is the relevance of COP to small island developing states like St. Lucia, because obviously these big, huge countries, high emitters, they do have a role to play. But us, our carbon footprint being very minimal. What is the relevance of COP to us? OK, I'm going to take and then I'll add Mr. Augustine. Yes, what I would say is yes, we are small emitters, but we may not necessarily be small when it comes to the impact or suffer in the consequences. So just to, for example, between the 90s to now, the late 90s to now, we have had what we would call once in a generation stop. Right. So, for example, in the case of St. Lucia, you would have had Hurricane Island, Hurricane Island happened in 1980, right? Now, you would expect at least 30, 40 years before you get another storm that that powerful. But we've been seeing that in the 2000s, early 2000s, you had the storm that devastated Grenada. Then you have had the storms that devastated the east coast of the United States. Almost every year or every other year, we have a dangerous storm that caused a lot of damage, trillions of dollars of accumulative damage have happened, that is one. Secondly, even if we are small, according to if you look at the UN Charter, we have the same rights to exist. And we also have a rise that our strategic interests are looked after. If we are not at the table, if we are not in the meetings, then how do we ensure that our what is in our strategic interests actually becomes stable, right? Saying that, but you know, that we have similar countries like us who will be in the meeting, so we don't need to go there. They may have certain special situations that will make them different from us. So it is essential that we go there and then we actually table some of our issues, but also be part of finding a solution. Right. Now, also the copies where everybody meet. This is, as I say, something that is impacting everyone. This is not by just impacting the poor countries. So it's only poor countries that speaking among themselves. There you're going to have some of the biggest financiers. You're going to also have representation from different sectors as every sector is impacted. It's also essential for us to see what is being done, what is working well elsewhere, what is actually being funded, what is the new, the next new thing that may actually fit into what we are doing. Right. So it is essential from those perspective for Saint Lucia to be there. And I do not know what that means, so we'll say, but I'm just saying that we sign on. So by signing on, we gave a commitment that we would be active in the process. OK, we must stick up in. We are talking climate action, the road to COP 27. Do stay tuned when we come back from here from you, Mrs. Misol, thank you. The world's climate is changing and that affects all of us. Storms are becoming increasingly intense, periods of intense drought and heavy rain, stress, farm animals and destroy our crops. Higher average ocean temperatures kill our coral reefs and change the migratory patterns of fish. Saint Lucia contributes only 0.0015 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but is doing its part along with countries around the world to reduce the emissions that are warming our world and changing our climate. These efforts are called mitigation, but decades of emissions have already changed the climate and the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere today will increase average global temperatures even more. We need to adapt, that is, do everything we can to prepare for and respond to the actual and expected negative effects of climate change. And everyone has a role to play. We need to protect our crops, build homes that withstand storms and keep our drains and waterways free of garbage to help us recover or bounce back from climatic events. Learn more about the government of Saint Lucia's National Adaptation Plan and the steps you can take to protect yourself and your fellow Saint Lucia's. Most scientists agree that an increase of just 0.4 more degrees will drastically change the world. And the world are dealing with record extreme heat. Thorns have been causing deadly floods. You could have mass melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. We don't act immediately. Scientists say the consequences will be catastrophic. Three degrees of warming is really disastrous. Dealing with unprecedented heat waves and drought. All day today, the rain falling so heavily and so quickly. $10 billion that recovery funds are tight. Rescuers doing everything they can to reach survivors. What if we could buy ourselves time? What if we could go back in time, undo what we've done and start over? I say what if. Because that is simply impossible. As the world moves forward at an unprecedented pace, we need to find ways to keep up with change and with time. For the past four and a half billion years, planet Earth has been thriving, growing and constantly evolving. And while we've only been around for thousands of years, some of what we've done is irreparable. Now, our planet needs our help. And we're running out of time. In today's rapidly warming world, the climate crisis won't wait for anyone. That's where you come in. You, the decision makers, the game changers, the forward thinkers, the first responders. You who make things happen and get things moving, you can help give the Earth a fighting chance. And the time to do so is right now. There's no extra time. This is your chance to step up. To template this to action and put our future back on the right track. Thank you so much for staying tuned. We are talking on TV 30 about the road to COP 27 climate action. We have a delegation from St. Lucia that will be represented in November in Sharma El Sheik, Egypt, where we will have individuals, representatives of the world over discussing how we can reverse the climate crisis that is being faced globally. We were speaking. We are speaking to Mrs. Mussol, Sustainable Development and Environment Officer at the Department of Sustainable Development, as well as Mr. Carl Monty Augustine, a research officer within the ministry of a forestry and fishery. I'm coming back to you, Mrs. Mussol, to add on to what Mr. Augustine stated earlier, in terms of St. Lucia's the relevance of COP to small island developing states like St. Lucia, in terms of building support for resilience, just having the responsibility as per us being a party to these conventions, to be in the room, to have a say, to discuss our peculiar experience where climate change is concerned. And very well said, Carl. And I just want to touch briefly on the point that you spoke to. You know, you spoke to the big financiers being present in the room. And one of the things that we, you know, we have benefited from in the past and we continue to benefit from is, you know, that support and that financing from especially those developed countries through the COP process. There have been different international climate funds that have been established, such as the Global Environment Facility, the Global the Green Climate Fund, sorry, the Adaptation Fund. All of these, St. Lucia is able to capitalize on funding to be able to, you know, implement projects on the ground that will help us to to build resilience, you know, even through the COP process, you spoke about meeting everybody there. We are able to build relationships, build bilateral relationships, especially through countries such as, you know, the UK, Germany that would have been influenced by the COP process by receiving funding, receiving capacity building support, technology transfer. And just to mention a few examples, maybe one or two. St. Lucia was recently the beneficiary of almost a 10 million US dollar project from the Adaptation Fund, looking specifically at the agricultural sector. We know that the agricultural sector is highly vulnerable, you know, to climate change and our food security is at risk because of climate change. And so that project seeks to, I guess, protect the livelihoods of farmers, seeks to build resilience in the agricultural sector and safeguard, you know, our food security. Also, the Millennium Highway Road Project. Many people may not know, but the UK has in part funded that project to ensure, you know, that our infrastructure, our roads are able to withstand the impacts of storms and floods, etc. Our schools, our, our, we've benefited from our health centers being retrofitted, being, you know, solar panels have been put on our health centers to be able to allow them, you know, to still function during storms if, you know, there is no electricity or whatnot so that they can still provide that critical service to the public that is needed. So there are benefits for us participating in the COP and we should not discount that. OK, and I mean, Mr. Augustine, you made a, you made a statement earlier speaking about strategy. And I would imagine that all of these achievements being able to access funding for climate mitigation, adaptation, there is a strategy behind getting our voices heard on such large international fora. Admittedly, our political strength is limited, right? What speak to us about the strategies that have been adopted, taken on to ensure that we are heard? Our voices are amplified on those platforms. Our concerns towards regarding us being casualties of climate change, increased temperatures, increasingly, you know, devastating storms, these things are heard on those platforms. Well, St. Lucia is not necessarily working, is not working at all. OK. Right. So we're working at the sub-regional, the broader regional, as well as their groupings that St. Lucia are also part of. So, for example, St. Lucia will work with the OECS to strategize with the other members, right, of that are independent and as well as parties to the climate change convention. We'll also work with the Karakum Secretariat as well is involved. But St. Lucia is a member of the OECS, which is the association of the Pacific and the small island states, right? So you'll have the Indian islands, the islands in the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and so on. And we also remember the group of 77. So through those groupings, we have a lot of what you call dovetailing, both of interests, strategic interests, as well as on the impact there, right? So this amplifies our voice. So it's not only when we, let's say, speaking to St. Lucia as an individual country, but St. Lucia voice is amplified. If we speak regionally, as well as through the groupings that we are members of, right? So when you come through those, that membership, it means that you maybe you have dozens of parties that may have similar issues as yours. You have dozens of parties who may actually show certain actions are actually working, right? So we can replicate, right? So this is something that happens. Now, we also do joint communiques. You also do joint statements and so on, right? So that will say, well, St. Lucia, as a member of AOSIS, is saying that we support this broader move or we may be able to push for certain things that we would never be able to achieve as an individual island. But because this groupings say, hey, you know, this is of strategic interest to us, strategic benefits to us, it goes through, right? So we do have power in amplifying and being party to those two groups. Right? So in fact, in part of the preparation that we have had is we have met as regional purposes, you could say, both OACS and carry come level, right? And to ensure that we are aware, we have a list of what are the priority areas that are impacting us. And we have more or less an idea as to who is going to be championing what, right? So this is essential. Yes. And just to add, just maybe a small point to that, we also have the backing of science, which we leverage a lot in the negotiations. So whatever demands that we make or, you know, whatever cases that we make, it's not a case of wishful thinking or fairy tales. But what we ask for, you know, the impacts that we go through, the loss of lives, the loss of property, the flooding, the hurricanes and all of these things that we experience, these are grounded in science. And we are able to reference these to paint a picture, to strengthen our cases when we go to the negotiation rooms in a hope to, I guess, appeal to the consciences of those developed countries, you know, those who are more responsible for climate change and in a hope to spur them to action. OK. We're running out of time. If you could just tell us about St. Lucia's delegation going into going to Sharma El Sheikh next month, as well as, I mean, as party to the Convention and other environmental treaties, what are the expectations of the delegates going into the negotiation process, networking events and so on? OK, so I'll begin with the delegation as Carl mentioned earlier. He would have spoke to, you know, the issue of climate change being multi-sectoral and the Department of Sustainable Development. Yes, we are the focal point for climate change, but it's not just us. It doesn't take just us to, you know, to act. And so you will find on the delegation different representatives from different ministries. Carl, for example, representing forestry and speaking to our forest and the importance that they play in terms of, you know, start removing carbon from the atmosphere and mitigating our emissions. We also have a representative from the energy division. We have a representative from economic development, for example. So there are different sectors and these individuals will be following different thematic areas in the negotiations on our delegation. OK, Mr. Augustine, we have time for just one more way in. If what are some of the key messages or takeaways you want to illusions to consider as the delegation travels to Egypt next month? I'm yes, that we are focusing on on getting tangible benefit. Yes, right. So part of the discussions and all of what is being done is so that we could get benefits as a people, right? As a country, we can move forward. So part of the stuff I'll be following has something to do with with the forest and its mitigative potential capacity, but there's also a tangible benefit that is being worked upon, right, when it comes to engaging with private landowners, transitioning into a more sustainable land management set of practices. But we are actively looking to get into the carbon the carbon market where we could sell carbon credits, which is the carbon that is removed from the atmosphere by growing trees, right? And then we could actually this could come as a payment to the people who own the streets. So those private owners or private forest and people who manage their land in a sustainable way could get those tangible benefits. Also like to add that I suspect that this might be one of the years that you have the greatest representation of agriculture as well as forestry in the country, right? So this is something that will will will definitely benefit the people tangible. Wonderful. Thank you very much, Mr. Carl Monte Augustine, research officer with the Department of Forest and Lands as well as Jermaine Missol, Sustainable Development and Environment Officer. Thank you very much for your time. We will be showing up as the focal point for climate change. The Department of Sustainable Development will be speaking a little bit more about climate action as we inch closer to COP 27. So do stay tuned to the various local channels as well as going on to Google and learning a bit more about climate change as well as the movement that is the conference of parties. That's all the time we have for now. Do keep in mind that St. Lucia will have a delegation going to Egypt in November to the COP 27. My name is Jesse Leonce. It's all the time we have. Do stay tuned for more programming on NTN. Goodbye.