In October 2017 IAMovement hosted activities which were a combination of both action and advocacy for climate matters in T&T, which called upon the Government of the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago to ratify the Paris Climate Agreement. On Friday 27 and Saturday 28 October 2017, IAMovement hosted the POS Climathon along with Mora Carbon, alongside 100+events globally, organized by Europe based Climate-KIC and ended with another exciting human heart formation activity, this time being called #Heart4Climate! The Climathon served as a 24-hour hackathon event to brainstorm solutions for improving the state of affairs as it pertains to climate and environment in Trinidad & Tobago – and ended with a public event in the Queen’s Park Savannah which called for ratification of the Paris Agreement.

The chosen topic for the Port of Spain Climathon which eight (8) local teams hacked innovative ideas and solutions for, was:

Food Security: Urban Agriculture and Greening the City

Ideas generated were meant to be practical and implementable, and through the event winning ideas were showcased to public and private stakeholders in the city of Port of Spain and around T&T. After the teams completed the 24-hour Climathon event, with their final pitches and selection of winners, participants moved from the Climathon venue at QRC onto the Savannah for prize giving and closing remarks, green entertainment from several surprise artists, and the formation of another beautiful #Heart4Climate – with participation of key stakeholders such as Mayor of Port of Spain Joel Martinez, and the European Union Ambassador Aad Biesebroek – who through this activity, joined all participants, organizers and members of the public in making a public call for the Paris Climate Agreement ratification.

Climate-KIC, the global organizers of Climathon invited all of the 100+ events worldwide to also create a #Heart4Climate during their 24 hr events, and through regional partnership networks with Global Shapers Port of Spain, Together WI, and the Caribbean Youth Environmental Network, we invited friends, colleagues and associates throughout our Caribbean region to make their own #Heart4Climate to stand together in shining a light on the Climate Realities which we can no longer ignore.

A hurricane relief item and agricultural seeds drive led by the Global Shapers Port of Spain Hub and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture was held in tandem with the #Heart4Climate event and we invited the public to bring items to donate to the Caribbean islands affected by hurricanes.

At the time of this event all of T&T’s Caribbean neighbours who more readily acknowledged the realities of Climate Change and mankind’s need to act, had already ratified the Paris Accord; while Trinidad & Tobago was one of the 29 countries out of 197 parties to the UN Convention to have not ratified the Paris Climate Agreement – at the time putting us among the 15% minority of countries who had not committed to global climate action.

Not long after on the 22nd February 2018, Trinidad & Tobago ratified the Paris Climate Agreement.