On Tuesday, he is also billed to be at a Caribbean Community ministerial meeting in Saint Lucia to articulate the region’s climate change priorities for the negotiations leading up to and at the United Nations summit in Copenhagen, Denmark in December.

Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Roger Luncheon yesterday told reporters the Multi-Stakeholder Steering Committee headed by Mr. Jagdeo to oversee the three-month national consultations on Guyana’s draft Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), is reviewing all available feedback as the basis of coming up with a second draft for the Copenhagen meeting.

The British Government has renewed its support for the LCDS by supporting the Project Management Office of the Office of the President set up to attract outside investment in specific low carbon sectors, among other initiatives.

British High Commissioner to Guyana, Mr. Fraser Wheeler, on Wednesday, said the British support the initiative as a progressive model that seeks to combine national economic development with the international climate change mitigation plan.

He was speaking at his residence where he presented University of Guyana lecturer Donna Ramdial with the British Chevening Scholarship to pursue studies in Environmental Forestry in the United Kingdom.

Updating the media on progress on the LCDS yesterday, Luncheon told his weekly post-Cabinet news briefing that the government’s intention was to use the consultative process to refine the LCDS and that review has commenced.

He reported “widespread interest and burgeoning support” from stakeholders and said the Guyanese model of avoided deforestation was emphasized in the consultations, particularly for its specific contributions to the national response to climate change.

Equally emphasized during the consultations, he said, was the bigger picture of financing of development of Guyana.

He said Mr. Jagdeo, at the New York meetings, will continue the international focus on Guyana’s offer, dealing with the merits and uniqueness of its avoided deforestation model.

These meetings are to maintain the momentum needed for a successful conclusion to the Copenhagen summit, he explained.

The New York summit is being convened by Mr. Ban – who has deemed 2009 the “year of climate change” – ahead of the UN conference in Copenhagen during which countries will seek to agree on a successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions, whose commitment period ends in 2012.

The CARICOM Secretariat here yesterday said that in conjunction with the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC), it has scheduled a ministerial level meeting for the region’s foreign affairs practitioners and technicians on Monday and Tuesday in Saint Lucia.

It said President Jagdeo, Saint Lucia Prime Minister Stephenson King and CARICOM Secretary-General Edwin Carrington will address the opening of the ministerial meeting.
King has lead responsibility among CARICOM leaders for climate change.