The Tribune

By LETRE SWEETING

lsweeting@tribunemedia.net

FREE National Movement leader Michael Pintard questioned the makeup of the government delegation headed for COP27 next week, saying the absence of officials from the Ministry of Environment “made no sense”.

His comments yesterday came days after an official of the Office of the Prime Minister announced that a 70-person delegation will attend COP27 in Sharm El- Sheikh, Egypt, scheduled for November 6-18.

The delegation will include officials from the Office of the Prime Minister, the Office of the Attorney General, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Health and the Department of Meteorology.

Mr Pintard said yesterday, “For the life of me, I cannot understand why the Minister of the Environment or the Minister of State would not have been involved in this discussion. I mean after all, it is an environmental conference. It made no sense to me.”

Mr Pintard continued, “The Minister of Agriculture ought to be there. The Attorney General in my view ought to be home working on a robust legislative agenda for this government, which he has not been able to do. So, we don’t understand why he is there and the Minister of the Environment is not.

“He should be addressing the issues that’ll cause us to be blacklisted. That through their dereliction of duty, they have contributed to,” he said at a press conference at FNM headquarters.

“His job at the end of the day would be to be advised by the technical team and then to execute, write a Cabinet paper based on those recommendations to send to his colleagues.”

Mr Pintard said when he attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference two years ago, members of the delegation at the time all had a role to play and the trip was funded by a non-governmental organisation.

“When I went to COP25, it was funded by the Organisation for American States agriculture arm called IICA (the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture). On that same trip was the minister with responsibility for the environment and both of us had a role to play on various committees.”

Mr Pintard added that in order to reduce the pressure on Bahamians, the Davis administration should focus on reducing “the extravagant travel that they are engaged in on a regular basis.”

“They can cut the budget around the many consultancies that they have put in place. Many of them are not working,” he said.

Last week, Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis said he will continue to advocate for “justice and fairness” for small island nations during the current climate crisis ahead of COP27 this month.

A day later, Rochelle Newbold, Mr Davis’ special advisor on climate change and environmental matters, said climate financing will top the list of priorities for The Bahamas when a 70-person delegation attends COP27 next week.

She said the government is only paying for its technical members to attend the event, saying some others who are going are funded by the private sector.

Mr Davis will be there among world leaders from November 6 to 12.

The delegation from The Bahamas will include Mr Davis, Attorney General Ryan Pinder, Agriculture and Family Island Affairs Minister Clay Sweeting and a number of other people, including a strong youth presence, officials from the Department of Meteorology and Ministry of Health.