WHILE, on a personal basis, President Bharrat Jagdeo can afford to ignore contentious protagonists because he has achieved immense stature as a brilliant economist and a visionary leader, who has propelled Guyana out of the image and the shadows of Jonestown to becoming a tiny dynamo within the third world framework, highly recognised on the world stage, as President of Guyana, he has no choice but to defend the policies, programmes and initiatives formulated to address socio-economic imperatives of the country that he heads.
He has to do this because the fallout can be devastating to this nation.
As natural catastrophes devastate nations worldwide, with even highly-developed first-world countries reeling from the many destructive effects of the climate change phenomenon, Guyana has advanced the integral component of the REDD+ programme–its Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS).
Guyana, whose coastal belt is about six feet below sea level, has been feeling the effects of the climate change phenomenon, mainly through phases of La Nina/El Nino weather patterns.
The current administration has a proven track record of creating innovative strategems to address problematic areas in the country, and the LCDS evolved through many layers of socio-political applications, particularly in its broad and all-inclusive nature to garner consensus, especially from Guyana’s indigenous communities.
However, opposition elements, with their agendas to propel self-aggrandisement and attract funds for their respective political parties and/or their affiliate bodies, have gone into an overdriven campaign to derail this ground-breaking initiative.
The resistance by some first-world nations to contribute to a global fund that will help in some measure to create mechanisms to buffer the effects of climate change, and provide protective features to enable vulnerable developing nations to literally and figuratively weather the storms of climate change, is causing much disappointment at climate change summits, with the greatest disillusionment resulting from Copenhagen.
Because of this, President Jagdeo and other protagonists went into the negotiations at Cancun with very low expectations, but what evolved from the Cancun deliberations exceeded those expectations.
President Jagdeo’s unrelenting lobbying for building this country’s low carbon economic development thrust gained new ground at the Cancun negotiations and his stand in presenting Guyana’s case at the meeting was widely reported by mainstream international media, including Time magazine, The Economist, the Washington Post and the Guardian newspaper of London.
Apart from the progress on REDD+, the Cancun meeting also reached agreement on a new fund for climate finance that will benefit from some of the US$100 billion in “long-term finance” that the agreements see flowing from north to south every year by 2020.
This fund will not be directly under the control of the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, but will instead be run by an independent board. The World Bank will function as a trustee for the fund, but in a way as yet to be fully defined.
In Cancun, Mr. Jagdeo highlighted the need for international mechanisms to facilitate the flow of climate finance from the developed world to the developing world.
He reiterated that having commitments of finance would be insufficient if these were not matched by the mechanisms to intermediate them.
On a panel convened by the Avoided Deforestation Partners non-governmental organisation, which included Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, international philanthropist George Soros and President Barack Obama’s Advisor on Energy and Environment, Joe Aldy, President Jagdeo explained how Guyana and Norway’s experience could provide valuable lessons for how multilateral institutions like the World Bank could be modernised to provide the financial intermediary services required for climate finance.
However, the local opposition media completely distorted and mischievously distorted the facts, and the President was faced with no other choice but to rebuff, in his own inimitable way, the normal misrepresentations, if not outright lies, carried by at least one newspaper and other opposition media entities.
Guyana’s President is known and respected for his blunt, forthright manner in addressing issues,and lies are absolutely abhorrent to him. However, he has now recognised that, in his own words, it is not malice, but stupidity that causes some reporters and columnists to report on matters of national import out of context and out of the box of good sense and an understanding of the complex issues involved.
“Here we’re speaking about an initiative, a system moving forward, a model moving forward. And I understand when some people cannot comprehend that – using an example to illustrate movement or lack of movement in a model. Clearly, we are the most advanced of any country in the world developing the REDD+ model,” he said.
The President added that while Norway has also developed models for Indonesia and Brazil, these do not include monitoring, reporting and verification nor are they situated within the framework of a low carbon development strategy.
“I was sharing our experience. I said that it doesn’t only take a generous donor – Norway – and a committed and willing country – Guyana – to make a model work. For the model to work, there are several other institutions that form part of the system, including the World Bank. [I said] until now, a year after we have fulfilled the conditions to Norway, [that country] has the money to deliver to Guyana and Guyana has the projects ready, that the money has not been delivered as yet…we have the money from Norway now. I was making the point that it took us from September last year to now to negotiate what is basically the setting up of a current account,” he said.
“If you can’t make this work with a country like Guyana, which was prepared to pioneer a model, what example are you sending to other countries that want to become part of a REDD+ mechanism?”
President Jagdeo’s unapologetic style of addressing problematic issues, especially when they will ultimately impact on the sovereignty of nations (witness his stance on the EU-driven EPA and the gains he unilaterally wrested from the European juggernaut because he refused to compromise the sovereignty and the long-term socio-economic viability of Guyana, and won concessions for the entire CARIFORUM bloc through his uncompromising stance) has won for him, reluctantly in some instances, the respect of his peers, the fraternal love of a powerhouse leader like Brazil’s President Lula, and the appreciation of world bodies and world leaders such as Prince Charles.
On the home front he is winning the trust of his people nationwide, despite the rigorous campaigning of the opposition political parties and their satellites in the media.
Yesterday’s reception for the President by the residents of Buxton when he arrived at that community to turn the sod for the new Tipperary Hall is a case in point.