– says President Jagdeo
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo said that although it is desirable to have “political cooperation”, he must move the country forward.

The Head of State was replying to questions by the media at his Christmas Eve press conference last Thursday at the Office of the President, Shiv Chanderpaul Drive, Georgetown.

Asked about Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) and political cooperation being crucial to moving forward, and what is being done to address that, since there has not been any significant development in this regard among the political parties, he stated, “Whilst it is desirable to have political cooperation to move your country forward, if you have people who don’t want to participate in national life, and who feel they have to find fault with everything, then I simply have to go forward.

He added, “So I am not going to wait to fix the sea defenses until I have a meeting with (Robert) Corbin or someone else.”

He outlined, “I would go ahead and fix the sea defenses or try to build the hydro or to invest in the indigenous communities or to build the canal at Hope or to raise the conservancy dam or to spend more on education and health – I don’t see what fixing real things, issues that affect people, have to do with awaiting approval from some political group.”

The President reminded, “I was elected to move the well-being of all the people of this country forward, so that’s what I am doing”.

President Jagdeo has reiterated that Guyana’s LCDS is a development tool that has to be advanced.

He said the LCDS stands to benefit on several fronts, despite the setbacks at the recent “chaotic and mismanaged” global climate change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark.

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

President Jagdeo said the US$10 billion 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 through that pact, and more is likely, he said, adding, “That’s extremely positive for Guyana”.

President Jagdeo said, from a national perspective, the accord reached in Copenhagen was “good for us, because forests have moved forward”.

He cautioned, though, 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 him, Guyana’s advocacy on climate change, over the years, has paid off.

He said the resulting high profile for the country from the government’s international lobby is good for the national image and identity.

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

President Jagdeo said a huge achievement for Guyana, too, is the progress on the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) concept.

He said 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 that concept.

President Jagdeo recalled that, under the original conception of REDD, countries like Guyana could not have received any money; and the Kyoto Protocol, which expires 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.

“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 now have REDD Plus included as a COP (Conference of Parties) decision emerging out of Copenhagen.”
“That’s huge for us,” the President said.