Minister has ‘full confidence’ that other overseas territories will represent island at COP27
Members of other UK overseas territories have the “full confidence” of the Minister of Home Affairs that they will make representations on the island’s behalf at COP27 – the UN’s climate conference being held in Egypt.
Walter Roban said that he “happily excluded” himself from attendance after he was part of the delegation that went to last year’s event in Scotland.
He met representatives from the Caribbean in August as the region prepared for the conference.
Mr Roban travelled to Nassau in the Bahamas to take part in the First Regional Heads of Government meeting held under the chairmanship of Philip “Brave” Davis, the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, held in partnership with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The minister said then: “Together we expressed a willingness to work as part of the region's effort and as part of the international island community to make a substantial impact at COP 27.”
He explained that limited spaces provided by the UK Government to attend the event in Sharm el-Sheikh meant that territories who did not send representatives in 2021 had priority this year.
Mr Roban said: “The main message that I would say the overseas territories have taken to this COP is that, certainly, the continuing of advancing the issues concerning ocean communities and the ocean agenda must be at the forefront of future initiatives in this area.
“Unfortunately, I would say, because we are an overseas territory we don’t get to sit in the plenary and participate in the negotiations; so we can only feed our message through the UK delegation, so we are doing our best to discuss those matters with the principles of the UK delegation.”
The minister said he understood that representatives met with Zac Goldsmith, who was this month appointed Minister of State for the Overseas Territories.
He added that meetings with other ministers were expected to "advance certain key initiatives that pertain to the OTs and the environment".
Mr Roban said: “The other territories are handling that and I have full confidence that they will make the best representations on our behalf.”
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