says President Jagdeo
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo, who yesterday returned from the United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, said that although the agreement fell short of expectations, a very “important flaw in the Kyoto protocol” was reversed.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces was speaking yesterday at the Army’s Camp Ayanganna headquarters in Georgetown, at the traditional ‘Soldiers’ Day and Christmas lunch.

Alluding to the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNCCC), the Head of State noted, “I just returned from Copenhagen and I am sure that most of you would have followed in the media what took place at this very important conference.”

Guyana’s delegation was led by President Jagdeo which saw delegates from 193 nations in what was regarded as one of the most important meetings in history.

The Head of State observed, “Many people have spoken about the agreement, and I saw various characterisations here in our local newspapers.”

“I don’t plan to speak much about it because I hope that I can speak more extensively sometime tomorrow about all the nuances and the process that led to Copenhagen and the final outcome,” he told the gathering.

Adding, “Just to say that we may be disappointed with the total agreement; it fell short of our expectations; but we, because of our hard work over three years, have managed to reverse a very important flaw in the Kyoto Protocol,” he stressed.

“…that in this accord, we have included REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) or forest as a concept, correcting as I said before, the deficiency of the Kyoto protocol.”

“And we have managed to widen the concept to something called REDD+, getting incentives for standing rainforests; so that was our lobby, and we have succeeded in enshrining that in the agreement.”

Also, the President alluded to comments by persons that ‘Guyana should have waited until Copenhagen to sign the agreement with Norway’ which secures US$250M over the next five years to support Guyana’s climate change model.

“Well, if they were just to examine one of the clauses of that Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), they would see that it provides for the Copenhagen agreement, a UNFCCC agreement, to overtake any of the provisions of the MOU should that be more favourable than the one that we negotiated,” he explained.

“Of course, we left Copenhagen without that much money on the table for forests, but at least with the concept enshrined in the agreement,” he noted.

He said the second aspect of the agreement that was secured is US$30B over three years for the developing world adding, “So that is a significant sum of money on the table, and we have to make sure that we have the projects ready to move this forward”.