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THE Prime Minister urged all to prepare for new opportunities in the post-covid19 world, especially in the energy sector, in his virtual address on Tuesday to a UN high-level roundtable on extractive industries.
He began by making a plea for equitable access to vaccines to combat the covid19 pandemic, which he labelled, "the worst health and economic crises of our generation."
Saying the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said the Caribbean and Latin America were among the economies worst hit by covid19, Dr Rowley said the pandemic's trajectory had shifted, with its epicentre moving away from the developed countries to the developing world. The latter, he said, had limited fiscal space to deal with the epidemic.
"TT reaffirms that a robust, inclusive and co-ordinated global response to the pandemic is imperative.
"An essential element of this response is ensuring equitable and fair access to covid19 vaccines, particularly for small island developing states.
He said he had been advocating for such equity in his engagements with the director-general of the World Health Organization and with many heads of government, both as prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago and as chairman of Caricom,
Rowley saluted the efforts of Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and UN secretary-general António Guterres, the latter of whom had produced 250 policy options for development financing in the era of covid19 and beyond.
"I am of the view that there will be significant opportunities for sustainable development in the post-covid world. There will continue to be traditional modes of operations in the extractive industries which cannot be replaced.
"However, the world as we know it has changed."
Rowley predicted that there will be new modes of operation in the future, which cannot be envisioned today.
"How well we embrace and master these new modes, turning them into sustainable opportunities, will depend on how well we prepare ourselves for the post-covid environment.
"In the past, in this (energy) industry, we have always had to chase a moving target. Our reality today is no different."
He said TT's national development strategy, Vision 2030, was aligned with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Rowley said the inclusion of renewable energy and energy efficiency in TT's national energy mix was a key medium-term development goal.
"I can proudly state that TT has been and continues to be on the right side of history, having initially used natural gas for electricity generation in 1959 and by the early 2000s being able to boast of 100 per cent natural gas usage in our electricity mix.
"We have achieved over two decades ago, what many countries today are now implementing."
He said TT sees natural gas as playing a pivotal role as the transition fuel (from fossil fuels to renewables) while everyone does their part under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
Rowley hailed Guterres for his initiative to formulate a policy brief on extractive industries, includingholding five previous roundtables on Extractive Industries and Sustainable Development and the 2030 Agenda.
"This, together with the discussions today, will certainly contribute to the establishment of a universally applicable foundation for your inaugural policy brief on extractive industries. I wish you all the success in this endeavour. I thank you."
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