Connecting to Climate Change

Why should we pay attention to coral reefs, which are only half alive? What does climate change have to do with Tobago? What does it all mean? Pat Ganase provides a perspective.

Around the world, we are witnessing catastrophic changes that we are told have been brought about by man’s industrial progress. It turns out that over the last century, our activities are heating up the planet. Ice caps are melting. Terrific storms are brewing over warming waters. The coral reefs are dying. The mean temperature of the planet’s surface has heated up by one degree Centigrade since the industrial age, just over 100 years ago; and is edging up by fractions of a degree every decade.

How could Tobago be expected to take responsibility for what seven billion of us together are shaping? Perhaps it will all pass us; and Tobago will be spared.

 

Mt Irvine Reef: though vibrant, fish life here is heavily impacted by pollution and sedimentation (Photo courtesy Anjani Ganase)

CORAL REEFS

No, it’s not that simple. We are small examples of the whole. Global warming – occurring as the result of humankind’s activities - is decimating coral reefs everywhere. After witnessing the decline and bleaching of parts of the Great Barrier Reef that runs the length of Australia’s east coast, the GBR Foundation recently launched the largest environmental campaign to generate interest. The five areas to be tackled are examples that could be applied to coral reefs everywhere:

Water quality;

Crown of Thorns Starfish control (species management);

Reef restoration and adaptation;

Indigenous and Community Reef protection; and

Reef monitoring and reporting.

Coral reefs are natural resources – rich and diverse as rainforests – that provide nurseries for marine species and protection for coasts. Isn’t it time for us to pay the same attention that Australia is dedicating to their reefs to ours. The Buccoo Reef Marine Preservation Area (MPA) was designated since 1973; but management and monitoring practices probably need to be updated and more diligently exercised. What about the other reefs around Tobago? Local communities know where these are; and there is a petition to create an MPA around the north of the island from Castara to Roxborough. Surely these environmental concerns will be heard and legitimized by a government with climate change adaptation and mitigation on their agenda?
 

Speyside Reef: this pale Orbicella coral on the reef near Little Tobago is showing signs of stress. (Photo courtesy Anjani Ganase)

CLIMATE CHANGE

The slow awakening to the need to safeguard marine resources including coral reefs is especially incomprehensible when one considers that West Indian scientists are in the forefront of the work that is being done at the level of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The recent report  - compiled and checked by hundreds of scientists around the world – has vindicated the models projected by the UWI team on the IPCC.

“Caribbean scientists have long held the position that (global temperature rise of) 1.5 degrees may be the limit of global warming that vulnerable regions such as ours can tolerate.” Michael Taylor, professor and Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of the West Indies (Mona) commented on the IPCC 1.5 Report released on October 8. Professor Taylor is one of the coordinating lead authors of the report.

Among other UWI scientists who served as contributing authors to the IPCC reports on climate change are Professors Anthony Chen, Leonard Nurse and John Agard who were members of the IPCC which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

Should we not pay attention to our own experts?

Leonard Nurse, professor of Integrated Coastal Management and Climate Change Adaptation at the Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies (CERMES) at the Cave Hill campus, said,  “The conclusions are clear – while the application of various mitigation and adaptation technologies will be helpful, there is absolutely no substitute for deep (carbon) emission cuts at source, particularly in high emitting countries. The report also corroborates previous IPCC findings that small island and low-lying states such as ours in the Caribbean are among the countries at highest risk.”

Do we need to be reminded that, per capita, Trinidad and Tobago is one of the highest carbon emitters in the world? Surely Tobago’s rainforest and natural marine areas are mitigating influences in the total output of the nation. Is this enough? Think of those states in the Pacific that have already lost islands: what did they do to deserve this? The lesson is that we are all in this together. One earth. One ocean. 

Connecting around the world against climate change: small islands are the most “at risk” from climate change. Here, these islanders join the call to remove carbon emissions from the use of fossil fuel (coal, oil, gas). (From https://350.org/)

A FOSSIL FREE WORLD

Professor Taylor warns us, “ Even 1.5 degrees poses significant risks to the most vulnerable.  Global action on climate change is not optional but is a must. I am hoping we can spur a region-wide movement in response to this report, its findings and the significance for the region. Every half-degree of warming counts. The global target of 1.5 degrees comes with significant risk. These risks pale compared to 2 degrees, which has long been viewed as the realistic target.

“To keep warming at 1.5 degrees requires significant global transformation in energy and transport. In the Caribbean, we must undertake those measures geared at adaptation and mitigation. We must also by example, or influence, persuasion or advocacy, model the social order that living within 1.5 degrees demands.”

What is this social order demanded by 1.5 degrees? One of the most important messages for the individual is perhaps the simplest: reduce (consumption), re-use (everything), recycle. This message is not only about plastic waste. It is a philosophy that goes against the culture of “more and bigger”; that speaks of old-fashioned values: enough is enough; waste not want not. It is asking us, at the personal and community level, to live lightly. Go beyond refusing the plastic straw to using only what we absolutely have to.

Look to the rest of the world: campaigns have moved from “no straw” to “no plastics,” and are already taking the big step to “a 1.5 world is a fossil free world.” Isn’t it time for Tobago to differentiate itself and make use of its abundant solar energy?

ONE ECOSYSTEM: FROM RAINFOREST TO DEEP REEF

One of the strategies for adaptation and mitigation is the call to conserve biodiversity by protecting natural habitats, which are crucial buffers to climate change. A prime example in Tobago would be to recognize the inter-related land and sea system that protects the southwest coast. The link between the marshes and mangrove of the Bon Accord lagoon and the Buccoo Reef has long been identified, and forms one of the significant proposals in the National Protected Area Systems Plan 2018. Indeed, all Tobago is a comprehensive island ecosystem that embraces diverse species of flora and fauna, including migrant sea birds, pelagic fish like wahoo and mahi mahi, turtles, sharks and whales, on land and on the reefs, in a virtuous circle of life; surely she is worthy to be protected.

Here, we already enjoy many of the prescriptions against climate change: pristine and protected habitats, the rich and thriving biodiversity that provides opportunities for adaptations; non-harming village lifestyles. Are we ready to consciously care for our island as if she were the whole earth?

Tobago or not Tobago: "Beyond Ordinary... Unspoilt, Untouched, Undiscovered" or "constructed, developed, habitats destroyed"