1 week Ago
Soaring dry season temperatures and water shortages have not yet penetrated the political bubble of this general election campaign. Nowhere on political platforms have speakers focused meaningfully on the new climate realities that pose peculiar problems for T&T and the region. Nowhere has there been evidence that leaders and aspiring leaders have a full grasp of the civilisational moment that the planet has entered or that they are possessed of the imagination to fashion the agile and innovative responses demanded.
One sure indication of that is the absence of attention to the climate realities facing the country and their consequences on, in particular, agricultural production—that is to say, food to feed the population. Every month of the year now has a lower average rainfall accumulation compared to previous decades, according to experts. Projections from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are dire for the region.
The tropics are expected to become progressively drier in a warmer world. Higher temperatures mean higher evapotranspiration, increasing aridity and more severe agricultural and ecological droughts. Yet, when showers, thunderstorms and tropical cyclones form, they are likely to be more intense, resulting in extreme rainfall totals.
T&T has been warming at a rate of 0.24 ̊C per decade; the last two decades have been the hottest on record, according to data since 1946 from the T&T Meteorological Service (TTMS) analysed by climate experts. In T&T, temperatures have increased every year since 1986 and this country has been warming 2.
5 times faster than the global average. Also during the wettest months of the rainy season—June through August—rainfall has been less and less. This drying-out will intensify.
These harsh realities are added to the traditional, age-old hindrances to sustainable, high-quality agricultural production in T&T. A sector already burdened by flooding, drought, weak infrastructure, limited financing, high input costs, gluts, praedial larceny and security of tenure now has to contend with the effects of higher temperatures. A seminar on “Climate Change and Paramin Agriculture” in 2024 heard Belizean Marcus Mycoo talk about pawpaw coming into production in six to six and a half months, when the norm was eight to nine and a half months.
Farmers are only now starting to understand the various ways their crops are being affected. Then there is the impact on farmers themselves. They are unable to work long hours in extreme heat.
That means productivity loss among workers in the sector. As crops suffer, so too will farmers and their workers, said the experts at that seminar. This general election campaign has focused on many pressing issues, including crime and the future of our oil and gas economy, especially with the United States revocation of its special licences to T&T to conduct business with US-sanctioned Venezuela.
The issue that transcends these is the global reality of a warming climate and its consequences on the capacity of humans to feed themselves. This is not a concern that awaits us; it currently confronts us. Having already diminished our agricultural production potential, we must demand inventive political leadership on how we can enhance our capacity to feed ourselves on a warming planet.
Our very survival depends on it..
