— To visit Switzerland in September
THE public awareness programme for Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy has intensified with President Bharrat Jagdeo taking a lead role in the process.

He last week met senior members of the local media and visited the Guyana Defence Force’s Camp Ayanganna headquarters to explain details of the strategy to members of the Joint Forces.

At the media session in the Office of the President complex on Wednesday, he announced that he has been invited by the Swiss President to visit Switzerland in September in connection with the global climate change battle in which he has been recognized for his leadership role.

Switzerland on Friday said it wants to join the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme and hopes to start formal talks to that end after the United Nations climate change meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark in December.

Moritz Leuenberger, Swiss transport and energy minister, told EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas at a meeting in Sweden the Swiss government wanted to bind the country’s own emissions trading system with that of the EU.

“The advantage of that is that it would significantly expand the emissions trading market for Switzerland and expand the flexibility of Swiss firms to buy and sell emissions certificates,” his ministry said in a statement.

The EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme puts a price on carbon dioxide and forces companies to pay for permits for each metric ton of CO2 they emit into the atmosphere.

Leuenberger agreed to pursue technical talks between EU and Swiss experts initiated in 2005 and said formal negotiations to agree a deal could be started after the Copenhagen conference.

The Kyoto Protocol, a treaty limiting greenhouse gases, is due to be renewed in global talks culminating at the Copenhagen conference.

In the exchange with media personnel last week, President Jagdeo stressed that the Guyana plan to put the economy on a low carbon footing should be an exciting venture for all Guyanese.

Although success with the LCDS depends on the outcome of the Copenhagen summit, he argued that Guyana should continue building the best model that it can.

He stressed that the process towards refining a final document for Copenhagen is open and transparent, noting that no other country has undertaken such an extensive programme of consultation and awareness.

The country should embrace this thrust, he said, adding, “We are going into this with our eyes wide open.”

Although noting that continuing discussions on including forests in the Copenhagen declaration are not encouraging, the President said the Guyana model is getting increasing attention and “we are working out a mechanism that could be a model for the rest of the world.”

Guyana’s LCDS is largely based on preserving its standing forests to help curb global greenhouse gas emissions and getting paid by the international community for its services.

Since the launch of the LCDS on June 8, there have been 15 sub-national consultations across the country with 222 communities and 3,285 persons involved.

A series of awareness is being convened to provide information on the LCDS and opportunities for discussions.

The forest producers and miners associations as well as women’s groups have so far convened sessions on the LCDS.

Outreach activities are being conducted in mining areas by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission and the North Rupununi District Development Board is to run awareness sessions among youths and communities in the North Rupununi.

At the Joint Services session, the President took the large audience through the goals of the LCDS, pointing out that it is a development document and not an environmental manifesto that is focused on employing Guyana’s vast rainforests and the carbon services they provide, to secure funding on the international carbon markets to bolster the government’s development efforts.

Such funding would be used to fix sea and conservancy defences to protect Guyana from flooding, building infrastructure for the country to exploit its non-forested lands such as the intermediate savannahs and the Canje Basin, on hydropower generation, on better education and health care for the Guyanese people, on landing fibre-optic cables to increase bandwidth connectivity and on agriculture.

President Jagdeo urged his audience to spread the message and encourage all parties to work together to make the LCDS a national effort, not a partisan one.