Guyana scores despite Copenhagen setbacks

– President reports
GUYANA’S Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) stands to benefit on several fronts despite the setbacks at the recent chaotic and mismanaged global climate change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, President Bharrat Jagdeo reported yesterday.

“We are ahead of the game because of our agreement with Norway”, he said referring to the accord the two countries signed last month under which Norway will provide US$250M to the LCDS up to 2015.


President Jagdeo is seen here perusing a DVD at a store on Regent Street yesterday.

At least we have secured some money; other countries have not yet secured anything and we have the possibility, at least over the next three years, to get some more money from the US$10B per annum” agreed for vulnerable countries, Mr. Jagdeo said.

He pointed out that the US$10B a year pledged for vulnerable countries up to 2012 would allow supplemental financing that would compensate Guyana to the true value of the agreement with Norway.

This country can get another US$40M a year with this agreement and more is likely, he said, adding, “That’s extremely positive for Guyana”.

He stressed that the lack of progress in Copenhagen will not stop the LCDS from moving forward because the LCDS is a development strategy and that has to be advanced.


President Jagdeo looks at the unsightly mess in the heart of the city as cardboard boxes are discarded at random on parapets.

At a Christmas Eve press briefing at the Office of the President complex, he said that from a national perspective, the accord reached in Copenhagen “was a good agreement for us because forests have moved forward”.

But, the President cautioned, that advance has to be situated in a good global deal because (without such a deal) the market for forest carbon “will not develop significantly and we are not going to get the type of money that we can get if a market mechanism is developed”.

According to Mr. Jagdeo, Guyana’s advocacy on climate change over the years has paid off.

He noted the resulting high profile for the country from the government’s international lobby, adding that this is good for the national image and identity.

“…that is a benefit that you cannot put in monetary terms”, he stated.

He also welcomed the debate on the LCDS by the Opposition parties in Parliament last week, adding that the government will pay serious attention to the issues they have raised.

A huge achievement for Guyana too was the progress on the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) concept.

He stated that the source of generating funds for the LCDS is the forestry sector and over the past two or three years, Guyana has been trying to broaden the concept of REDD.

Mr. Jagdeo recalled that under the original conception of REDD, countries like Guyana could not have received any money and the Kyoto Protocol which ends in 2012 did not include forests.

“So our lobby had to be to widen the concept from REDD to REDD Plus to add conservation of forestry to cutting deforestation rates”, he told reporters.

“We succeeded in broadening the concept before Copenhagen and getting a significant deal of support from the developing and developed world”, he said, adding that Guyana managed to get this included in the Copenhagen Accord and in the formal decisions of the conference.

“We have succeeded on every count to get REDD included in its broader conception…that’s a huge, huge, huge achievement for Guyana – we have corrected the deficiency of the Kyoto Protocol; we have now REDD Plus included as a COP (Conference of Parties) decision emerging out of Copenhagen.”

“That’s huge for us”, the President said.

He said Japan has pledged to meet half of the US$10B a year fund and the European Union has committed just over US$3B a year.

He noted that the U.S. pledged US$1B but this is way below what it proportionally should put up and, unfortunately, most of the other developed countries did not put up any money. This fund will go towards adaptation, mitigation and forests.

President Jagdeo referred to the notional figure of US$100B per year by 2020 to fund adaptation, mitigation and technology transfer actions, noting that there is a pledge to work towards that with money coming from private and public sources.

But while the menu of measures to yield these resources is still to be determined, he said that, in a sense, just identifying the figure was important.

The United Kingdom, France, Norway, Australia, the U.S. and Japan have pledged support for the Informal Working Group on Interim Financing for REDD.

The President said Guyana had a well-balanced team in Copenhagen and with the LCDS, which was tested through open, comprehensive and transparent consultations, this country was in a better position than many other delegations because “we were thinking at the national level about the issues collectively”.

Many countries may have had individual plans and country positions but these were not situated in a low carbon development strategy and as well thought out and tested as Guyana’s which had support from government and civil society.

“That was unique about our advocacy and our delegation”, he said.

Mr. Jagdeo felt that overall, what emerged from Copenhagen was a disappointment from a global perspective.

He noted that there is not yet a legally binding agreement and no commitment in the accord to cut global emissions by 50 per cent by 2050 or by the developed world by 80 per cent by 2050.

While the major countries of the world say they agree with the science, unfortunately their actions did not support the science, he said, adding that the science is quite clear that if the global temperature rise is to be limited to 2 degrees Celsius by 2050, the developed world has to cut its emissions by 25 to 40 per cent on a 1990 baseline and the large emerging economies have to cut their emissions by 15 to 30 per cent on a business as usual pathway.

He recalled that the U.S. announced a very long time ago and included in its Clean Energy and Security Act, a 17 per cent on a 2005 baseline which works out to a 4 per cent cut on emissions on a 1990 baseline.

The U.S. is required to get up to 25 per cent at a minimum but it went to Copenhagen and did not change its position, the President pointed out.

He said no one can deny the justice of the arguments by China which has argued that just when the developing world is trying to industrialise and attain prosperity, those countries that have used the polluting path want to stymie their growth by capping their emission levels and are unprepared to put the money on the table to assist them to do so. “There is justice in that argument”, he stressed.

But, the President said, even if the developed world was to cut its emissions to zero from now into the future, and China was to grow at the same rate as it is growing now, the 2 degrees Celsius target will not be achieved.

“We will go above it. That’s why we have been urging China to do a bit more and China has done a lot. China is one of the global leaders in renewable energy now”, he said.

Mr. Jagdeo said he did not subscribe to the view that China was the villain in Copenhagen “but we need them to work with us for a deeper level of emission cuts from a business as usual pathway.”

He stressed too that the accord the U.S. worked out with four other countries just codified existing pledges made before Copenhagen.

“There was no shift in Copenhagen itself”, he maintained.

He noted that the UK, Norway, France and Australia tried to push several measures that would have brought an agreement closer but they too were disappointed.

Mr. Jagdeo added that the Danish presidency of the conference has a lot to answer for the chaos and mismanagement of the process.

He reported that, for example, many members of the Guyana delegation had to wait in the freezing cold for more than 10 hours to be accredited.

Thousands of people who were crucial to the negotiations were waiting for hours outside the centre, he said, adding that the hosts accredited 30,000 people for a place that could hold maybe 11,000.

“We are hoping that we can move forward from this and that by (a meeting in Mexico next year) we would have enough momentum and a lot of work would be done in various areas to have a legally binding outcome”, he said.

He said Norway has decided to put together a group on forestry and he expects several other leaders will work on different areas and try to reach at least some consensus, with heads involved, rather than just negotiators, in a process that could see most elements of a legally binding agreement framed long before the Mexico meeting.

Mr. Jagdeo said passage of legislation by the U.S. Senate early next year may also allow the U.S. administration to up its pledges because that is critical to break this deadlock.

“I am hoping that we can continue to work towards an overall agreement that is ambitious enough and would have all of the measures in place to limit global temperature increase”, the President said.

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