Hop scotching on our future
WITH the world getting warmer from global warming, I don’t see many women here wearing stockings — so it will be hard for me to find a stocking to hang up for the goodies Santa Claus may be bringing me this Christmas.

I’ll probably have to settle for leaving him a brown paper bag to leave my stuff in. Brown paper bags don’t have much effect on the environment and are not likely to clog up canals and drains like plastic bags and other containers and styro foam boxes and stuff like that do.

So, if I turn to a brown paper bag, Santa may give me a bonus gift this Christmas for me doing my bit to help save the world from global warming.

I wouldn’t mind him leaving one of his lovely female helpers behind to serve me pepper pot and ginger beer on Christmas Day. Ho! Ho! Ho!

Later today we will know if the world leaders meeting in cold Copenhagen, Denmark will find the warmth in their hearts to give us one of the best Christmas gifts ever – a firm, meaningful deal to avoid climate catastrophe.

One would have thought that with Santa purportedly residing somewhere in the cold North and with polar ice caps melting, the leaders of the rich world would have been up close and personal with the urgent need to seal a deal that could help to save the planet.

Instead, the proceedings so far have been much like a man dressed in white hopping across a pedestrian crossing shouting `Now you see me, now you don’t! Now you see me, now you don’t!’

They are playing hop scotch with our future in Copenhagen. And yesterday it seemed like the game will continue on to Mexico in June next year.

The sad part of it all is that poor countries in the Third World that cannot be blamed for churning out the deadly gases from giant power stations and industrial complexes that have made the so-called developed world rich and which are making planet earth hotter, face the greater share of having to cope with the looming catastrophes from climate change.

Some small islands states and low-lying countries face the real prospect of disappearing under water from rising sea levels; others have to find huge sums to shore up sea and other defences against rising waters, or moving their populations to higher land.

Whatever emerges from the hop scotching in Copenhagen, it is clear that Guyana is on the right track with its Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) and that it will have to look to further the kind of partnerships it has achieved with Norway.

The landmark deal the two countries signed at Fairview Village in the Rupununi last month has been praised in Copenhagen by Britain’s Prince Charles.

The Prince, who has been among international figures backing this country’s climate change model, addressed the high-level opening of the summit Tuesday night, noting that the forests of the world are being “cleared at a terrifying rate.”

“The simple truth is that without a solution to tropical deforestation, there is no solution to climate change. That is why I established a Rainforests Project to try to promote a consensus on how tropical deforestation might be significantly reduced”, he said.

“…it seems the quickest and most cost-effective way to buy time in the battle against catastrophic climate change is to find a way to make the trees worth more alive than dead.

“The project has been exploring the drivers of deforestation and how innovative financing mechanisms could provide rainforest nations with financial rewards for positive performance”, he said.

“One example of such a performance-based approach is the recent agreement between Guyana and Norway”, he said.

Guyana and Norway last month signed a memorandum of understanding under which Norway will provide US$250M in support to this country’s LCDS centred largely on preserving its forests to help the global climate change cause.

Prince Charles, through his Rainforests initiatives, saying his leadership on this issue is perhaps “one of the most optimistic developments”.

“There is no doubt that Guyana represents a unique opportunity to develop a model which could be rolled out across the rainforest nations”, Prince Charles said last year.

“Clearly, if we want to continue to benefit from the services provided by the rainforests we will have to start paying for them. But we cannot afford to lose this opportunity to demonstrate what can be done and to respond to the President’s remarkable offer”, he said.

Wouldn’t it be so nice if, for Christmas 2009, all stakeholders in Guyana find the spirit to rally around a true national cause?

Dare we hope?
Christmas, they say, is a time of hope.
Let’s wait and see.