…sounds danger climate change poses to welfare
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo said the prospects for a binding climate change agreement by the United Nations Conference to be held in Cancun Mexico look daunting, as large countries are unwilling to go beyond the financial commitments and emission cuts proposed at Copenhagen. The President was speaking last evening at the opening of an international conference on low carbon development and community planning, held at the Guyana International Conference Centre by the Central Housing and Planning Authority and the Canadian Institute of Planners.
He said that planning for the future must have an international dimension given the threat to the coast of Guyana that climate change presents.
The Head of State said that apart from meeting some global target to avoid catastrophic climate change, a country like Guyana cannot be motivated just by the achievements of those targets.
He said Guyana has to be motivated by the local ecosystem impacts to the global climate that can happen with the preservation of the resources, such as forests.
Mr. Jagdeo said the LCDS can only succeed in an international environment where there is a binding agreement by all of the countries of the world.
He noted that the recently concluded Bonn climate negotiations demonstrated that there still is a huge divide between developing countries and developed ones as to what is needed for sustainability.
According to him, developing countries want a binding agreement on emissions cuts and on money for adaptation and creating low carbon economies. The President said developing countries must maintain this position.
He said, too, that the targets agreed to at the Copenhagen conference are nowhere close to what they need to be to keep temperature from rising beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Alluding to analyses, he said if the world were to deliver on the emissions commitments from Copenhagen, global temperatures will rise by 4 degrees Celsius.
The President noted that the US$30 billion that the Copenhagen Accord speaks of is inadequate and is only a fraction of what is required. “We don’t see an appetite on the part of the developed world to move towards Copenhagen,” he said, adding that large countries do not want to put more money on the table or make deeper cuts in emissions. He said that although there may be some stand alone initiatives, Cancun may not deliver anything else.
The President said no Caribbean country today can exclude from its planning the challenges posed by climate change and the huge cost of mitigation. He said that for many countries in the region, the sums are unreachable.
The region will experience the effects of climate change even if action is taken to mitigate the effects because of the already high concentrations of green house gases in the atmosphere.
The President said that if these countries do not receive funding for adaptation then they run the risk of having to choose between these actions and providing welfare for their citizens.