There is interesting perspective on COP 26 from Belize's young CEO of Sustainable Development.
We asked him what his projections are for COP26's final negotiations and whether or not he's able to keep hope alive.
Kenrick Williams - CEO, Ministry of Sustainable Development
"You have to come to the table to be a part of the discussion and we have to do that in person and we having the discussions, we can't just throw our hands up in the air and say this is lone talking, we have to stay focused you know to continuously defend Belize's composition and I think that's what we're trying to do here today, to ensure that we highlight the good things about Belize and the things we have been doing, we learn because at the end of the day we are still faced with climate change, so we come here, we learn best practice, we see how we could apply, we build partnerships, we can't do this alone. So, at these forums we build partnerships, we leverage opportunities, seek the type of support we need on the global scheme and then we continue to defend our position. Developed countries will continue to develop yes but at the end of the day we're hoping and we're fighting and pushing for the type of development that would reduce the impacts on countries like Belize. So yes, there is a lot of talk but this is important talk, it has to happen, we have to defend the position of our individual countries, in our case we have to defend that of Belize and keep at it, at the end of the day that's what we're hoping positive outcomes in some of those key areas and not just at this discussion right going forward, one of the key outcomes for us is how is it that Belize will improve scale up some of it's engagement in some of the international forums with international bodies. For instance the GCF, the adaptation funds, some of these financing mechanisms, how do we ensure going forward that we move from talk to action, talk to implementation that benefits Belize and I think that will be some of the key outcomes we are hoping to achieve."
And Cherisse Halsall rounds out her COP26 coverage tomorrow night when she introduces us to a number of the conference's key Belizean negotiators and gives us a taste of just how gruelling this COP has been.
