By Natalie Hypolite
On Monday 10th March, the Honourable Minister of
Planning, Housing and the Environment, Senator Dr. Emily Gaynor
Dick-Forde gave the feature address at the opening of the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held at
the Hilton Trinidad & Conference Centre. The Ministry of
Planning, Housing and the Environment, was co-host to this
expert meeting which was organized under the Nairobi Work
Programme on impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate
change.
The three day
meeting enabled approximately 60 delegates representing
developed and developing countries to share their experiences in
integrating socio-economic information into impact and
vulnerability assessments as well as in adaptation planning. It
also aimed to assist all participating countries to improve
their understanding and assessment of climate change to improve
their informed decisions on practical adaptation actions.
Minister
Dick-Forde told those in attendance that ‘this meeting is of
extreme importance to Caribbean countries because we have
historically not placed much emphasis on the collection of
environmental statistics, nor on information relating to
socio-economic shifts deriving from the climate change
phenomenon.’
Given the
serious social and economic impacts of climate change, the
Minister was pleased to announce that ‘the Government has taken
a conscious decision to restructure and upgrade the statistical
agency with a view to introducing a new system, which will
generate all the statistical information required for an
integrated social, economic and environmental planning process.’
The participants at the working meeting represented countries
such as the US, Canada, Europe, Asia, Tanzania, Costa Rica,
Suriname and Jamaica, as well as local representatives.
