The climate conversation made interactive and brought to you – in homes, schools, organizations, and public spaces – IAMovement has been hosting Climate Talks since 2017 featuring local and relevant content, helping students and adults alike to greater understand and relate to the climate realities facing in T&T the rest of the planet, and the opportunities to become climate leaders now which come with it.

What makes Climate Talks very accessible and unique to all are their relatively short time frame (1-2 hours), their interactive nature with live Q&A (and sometimes featuring prizes), their intentional focus on local and highly relevant content – using a range of multimedia approaches. IAMovement’s Climate Talks over the years have evolved to include a wide range of content in both the climate mitigation and adaptation spaces, including greater understandings of the local energy space, sustainable energy and energy transition opportunities, and green infrastructure approaches, to name a few key areas. They are designed to generate engaging conservation around key environmental and social issues within the country. Climate Talks combine educational material with action oriented solutions which participants can implement immediately in their day to day lives. When it began in 2017 it took the climate conversation forward in T&T in a very unique approach. A primary feature was the short documentary film “$MALL CHANGE” produced by IAMovement. During this iteration IAMovement carried out events at some 40 schools, organizations and public spaces across the nation; where the film was accompanied by interactive open floor discussions about the many social, economic and environmental benefits which T&T can experience by ‘going green’. In line with the theme and content of “$MALL CHANGE”, these discussions were centered much around Energy Sector issues based on our legislation together with renewable energy opportunities in the private and public sectors, as well as other very pertinent issues we face locally such as waste and recycling.

These forums helped to grow and evolve the awareness of many participants on key matters. These included a better understanding of T&T’s true energy landscape – both historic and current, international energy markets and their highly unpredictable nature, the risks to our economy in being so heavily dependent on fossil fuel energy alone as a depleting resource, and great social and economic opportunities available to T&T through investments into energy efficiency and renewable energies. Where persons in T&T and as found at Climate Talk events often indicate that they “feel” they can have no impact on solving the problems, a fresh sense of hope and interest is often fostered in participants through the activities. The group forums encouraged them to take personal choices seriously and connected the dots on their impacts and allowed them to openly voice opinions, fears and concerns; and to realize that their individual choices – the ‘small changes’ that they each make in their daily lives, can add up for a collective good.

Climate Talks’ evolution to include the REthinking Energy series which was produced working alongside the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago and the Energy Chamber led the events to a greater technical depth – to the appreciation of many who got to participate in them. This also allowed IAMovement to begin taking these discussions into key higher level spaces, such as the Energy Chamber’s Sustainable Energy Conference, offices at Massy Energy and Petrotrin, and a high-level public stakeholder forum at the Central Bank of Trinidad & Tobago, to name a few.

Over time, as IAMovement recognized the value of the Climate Talk model generally, it’s content evolved – and IAMovement also facilitated other partners in developing their own approaches to implementing Climate Talks utilizing some of their own choice, local-relevant content – as was done with it’s partners in Guyana and Suriname, for the UN Democracy Fund supported project ‘Advancing Climate Democracy in Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad & Tobago’. Implementing partners in these countries for Climate Talks and other relevant activities under the project were the Guyana Environment Initiative (GEI) and the Green Heritage Fund (GHF). Climate Talks led by IAMovement today now proudly feature a wide and diverse range of topics at varying technical levels to reach all audiences, from young students, to teenagers, members of the public and high-level professionals in various arenas of life – on many key matters of climate; realities, challenges and solutions alike.