After ACTO summit in Brazil…
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo is flying from Brazil to Trinidad today, to participate in the 2009 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), which gets underway this morning at the National Academy for the Performing Arts, in Port of Spain.

The Guyanese Head of State had travelled to Brazil for an Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organisation(ACTO) summit, to share information on the dual positions to be taken at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen, Denmark.

This was disclosed yesterday by Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS), Dr. Roger Luncheon, at his weekly post-Cabinet news briefing, in Office of the President, Shiv Chanderpaul Drive, Georgetown.

ACTO groups Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela, in a shared commitment to environmental preservation and the rational use of the Amazonian natural resources.

Noting that CHOGM 2009 is slated to be the final international event before the Copenhagen forum, Luncheon said it would afford President Jagdeo an additional opportunity to highlight this country’s ground-breaking Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) and emphasise deforestation as a model for financing development.

The HPS also announced that President Jagdeo will lead this country’s delegation to the NFCCC meeting in Copenhagen, with President of the National Toshaos Council, Ms. Yvonne Pearson as the co-leader, as well as functionaries from the Office of Climate Change and members of the LCDS Steering Committee.

Luncheon said Cabinet noted that there is still “belated but spirited movements” on the issue of capping emissions by the major international players in the developed world and the industrial giants in the developing world.

Nonetheless, Cabinet still feels that the anticipated output of a conclusion on a replacement to the Kyoto Treaty remains daunting, he said.