T&T ranks high in the world in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. This is an important statistic for us because many citizens do not know that this country is one of the leading contributors to global warming, says Lester Boodhoo, manager, responsible care, at local methanol producer, Methanex. In an interview with the Business Guardian at American Chamber’s (Amcham) head office in Port-of-Spain, Boodhoo, to discuss the chamber’s upcoming 13th Health, Safety, Security and Environment conference and Exhibition Monday and Tuesday. “We expect to engage the Government in this conference as well as the Environmental Management Authority (EMA). T&T, at some point, is going to have to step up and make some decisions around greenhouse gas emissions and we certainly have a stake in this global effort.” He said there is a lot of debate around the world focused on identifying the major polluters and the commitments countries should make to deal with global warming.
“The commitments that were made under the Kyoto Protocol expire in 2012 and seeks to reduce four major greenhouse gasses including carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and sulphur hexafloride. There are going to be follow up meetings around the world to develop a plan for dealing with pollution in the future. The major dispute facing the world is how the developed countries—especially the US and some other large developing countries—are going to pick up more of that responsibility. If you look at emissions today, you would find that China is emitting more greenhouse gases than the United States.” He said there are even debates on a standard for measuring emission levels. “Do we look at historical emissions or current emissions? Do we look at Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita as it is now? “So you have the US, a highly developed country and then you look at China which is now developing and you see that the GDP per capita is much lower. Should we allow developing countries to grow and catch up and give them more time to adjust than the more advanced economies?”
Boodhoo said when the time reaches and countries are asked to take responsibility for emissions, T&T will have to account for itself. “If there were some consensus around the world that emissions per capita is going to be a factor in determining the proportion of the responsibility allocated to different countries, then it’s something T&T is going to have a stake in.” He said around the world there are moves to implement more environmentally friendly laws. “If you follow US news you would find out that their House of Representatives passed the cap-and-trade legislation and there’s going to be a debate in the American Senate on this legislation. There’s a whole industry now developing around greenhouse gas reduction and carbon equivalent.” He said the chamber is responding to these issues by hosting a two-day conference which will provide up to date information on this topic and environmental protection. “The environmental professional is going to get up-to-date information on these topics. We also have participation by the EMA and on the safety side we’ll have the T&T Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) authority and agency.
“There’s a workshop on carbon fundamentals and one hosted by Osha. He advised that the local private sector must be proactive in having environment-friendly practices. “We encourage our member companies and we encourage all of corporate T&T not to depend on legislation and merely have the Government and global institutions telling us to do things. We want to be proactive. We want to go beyond compliance. This is a case where T&T being a developing country is not required to commit to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions at least as yet. “However we encourage member companies to do whatever they can to reduce greenhouse gas emission.” On day two of the conference there will be a panel discussion on climate change and its impact. “For the panel discussion we have the EMA, Ministry of the Environment and other key stakeholders. Of course we are going to have other private sector representation to have a panel discussion on climate change initiatives and its impact on T&T.
“We already have the opportunity to utilise some of these global initiatives, the clean development mechanism, for example, and even cap-and-trade as it exists today can present opportunities in Trinidad.” Boodhoo said it may be cheaper to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries rather than already developed ones. “The idea of emissions changing globally is that it may be more cost effective to reduce greenhouse gas emission in, let’s say, Trinidad rather than in California.
“There are already many tight emission standards and limits and for them to reduce it would be cheaper for it to be reduced here. During the conference there will also be a technical session on clean and renewable sources of energy. Boodhoo said the local private sector would benefit from reducing energy costs and it would actually contribute to their businesses. He said one of the presentations would be the benefits of going green. “A lot of the times with environmental initiatives—energy efficiency or waste reduction—you find there is an economic benefit. It impacts the bottomline. You use less gas or less electricity, resource conservation, you use less water and you save money as well.”
He said although local legislation has come a long way more has to be done to ensure that it works in the way it was designed to do. “We have the Occupational Safety and Health Act but it is really framework legislation. To take full effect it requires we have regulations developed for different aspects of occupational health and safety.” He said if T&T were to compare its legislation to the developed world one can safely say that this country is on the right track. “The Government is trying to set standards in line with developed countries, however, a lot of those standards are still being developed and are still on the way. The regulations are still in the developmental stage.” He added that legislation on the environment has also come a long way. “Similarly with the environment, we have some of the legislation in place. We have water pollution rules in place and we have the certificate of environment clearance rules in place. We’ve come a long way in terms of environmental legislation but more needs to be done and we need to prepare for systems and cultural changes to reduce emissions and pollution.”
