The Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment will be the na­tion­al­ly des­ig­nat­ed au­thor­i­ty for the fund­ing and is the of­fi­cial fo­cal point of the GCF.

A me­dia re­lease from the Plan­ning Min­istry stat­ed that the Green Cli­mate Fund was es­tab­lished to lim­it or re­duce green­house gas (GHG) emis­sions in de­vel­op­ing coun­tries, and to help vul­ner­a­ble so­ci­eties adapt to the un­avoid­able im­pacts of cli­mate change.

Plan­ning Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is said this fund­ing will as­sist the cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion and adap­ta­tion ef­forts of the Gov­ern­ment through the fo­cus of two ini­tia­tives which pri­mar­i­ly in­volve ca­pac­i­ty build­ing and da­ta col­lec­tion.

“The in­ten­tion is to re­quest ad­di­tion­al fund­ing from GCF to fur­ther meet our Na­tion­al­ly De­ter­mined Con­tri­bu­tions for on the ground ac­tiv­i­ties to con­tin­ue to re­duce our green­house gas emis­sions and build our re­silience to cli­mate change in all vul­ner­a­ble sec­tors.”

The spe­cif­ic projects for this fund­ing are:

1. Ca­pac­i­ty build­ing with­in the Min­istry of Plan­ning in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty Cli­mate Change Cen­tre (CC­C­CC) to strength­en the Min­istry’s in­sti­tu­tion­al and tech­ni­cal ca­pa­bil­i­ty to un­der­take GCF fund­ed projects. Oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties will in­clude the de­vel­op­ment of a com­mu­ni­ca­tion and ac­tion plan for stake­hold­ers; re­vi­sion of the Na­tion­al Cli­mate Change Pol­i­cy; and cost ben­e­fit analy­ses of risk and adap­ta­tion mea­sures to en­sure that na­tion­al pro­grams and fund­ed projects ef­fec­tive­ly re­spond to the adap­ta­tion and mit­i­ga­tion needs of T&T.

2. The sec­ond ini­tia­tive cov­ered by this fund­ing is an 18 month col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Food and Agri­cul­tur­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion (FAO) fo­cus­ing on build­ing cli­mate change re­silience in the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor through the col­lec­tion and analy­sis of agri­cul­tur­al and as­so­ci­at­ed ac­tiv­i­ty da­ta that in­cludes food im­port de­pen­den­cy; the im­pact of hy­dro­log­i­cal and me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal da­ta; as­sess­ment of green­house gas emis­sions and the re­port­ing of gen­der sen­si­tive cli­mate im­pacts on agri­cul­ture and food sys­tems.

“This arm of the project will al­so build the ca­pac­i­ty of key stake­hold­ers to use agri­cul­tur­al, hy­dro­log­i­cal and me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal da­ta to im­prove re­silience to cli­mate change, through the de­vel­op­ment of mo­bile phone ap­pli­ca­tions as one tool. The use of this fund­ing is in keep­ing with T&T’s Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Strat­e­gy, VI­SION 2030, Theme 5: Plac­ing the En­vi­ron­ment at the Cen­tre of So­cial and Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment as well as with the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to achieve the glob­al Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals fo­cus­ing on cli­mate change and the en­vi­ron­ment,” the me­dia re­lease said.