– President Ramotar
FUNDAMENTAL sustainable development challenges, crucial to achieving a green economy is regarded by President Donald Ramotar as a necessary priority of the upcoming United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio+20) in Brazil where world leaders will meet to address global challenges. Speaking at the Second CARICOM-Mexico Summit on May 21 in Barbados, President Ramotar shared the view that a green economy framework can play a critical role in rehabilitating the economies of CARICOM Member States which continue to be negatively affected by the 2008-2009 global financial and economic crises.
“Member States have been and are interpreting the green economy concept according to their national sustainable development priorities and national economic and social conditions.  In fact, several of our Member States have developed, or are in the process of developing, sectoral policies, sustainable development strategies, strategic and medium term planning programmes and natural resource management frameworks that serve as the basis for a greener, low-carbon economic transition and, at the same time, address the issue of poverty eradication and the broader goal of sustainable development,” President Ramotar said.
Guyana’s model, the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) seeks to build and expand on the country’s economic and social reforms.
With the country’s forest at the centre, the project seeks to transition Guyana onto a low carbon path where millions of United States dollars received through the world’s second largest forest climate services arrangement, will be invested in hydropower, Amerindian land titling, fibre optic cable laying and the establishment of an international centre for biodiversity research.
Despite the drastic move by the one-seat opposition political parties’ majority in the parliament to slash the $18.3B allocation to the LCDS in the 2012 budget, the government remains resolute in its vision.
President Ramotar told delegates at the Summit that he was pleased with the efforts of several CARICOM Member States to develop sectoral policies, sustainable development strategies, strategic and medium-term planning programmes and natural resource management frameworks that serve as the basis for a greener, low-carbon economic transition and, at the same time, address the issue of poverty eradication and the broader goal of sustainable development.
Central to the Rio+20 Summit is green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication, but in looking to a meaningful outcome President Ramotar highlighted the need for redress to a number of issues which he believes will influence the upcoming agenda.
Foremost among them is the exclusion of a number of issues important to Small Island Developing and low lying coastal States from the Quito Declaration after the first meeting of Ministers of the Environment at the Community of Latin American and
Caribbean States (CELAC).
Among them are the financial, material and human resources that developed countries pledged to make available, since Rio 1992 but have to date been delivered in small parts, even though developing countries have been able to significantly improve their capacities for natural resources and environmental management.
“As a result, developing countries are still badly in need of the promised support to meet the ever increasing challenges… small island and low lying coastal developing states, in particular, continue to face increasing pressures from more frequent and more intense attacks from natural disasters and need to develop appropriate and effective response mechanisms,” President Ramotar said.
Tourism, health, oceans, climate change and energy are among the priority issues for CARICOM, which has added its voice to the call by other developing countries for an additional negotiation session to ensure a successful and mutually satisfactory outcome of the Rio+20.
It is predicted that the consequence of inaction by Caribbean SIDS in adapting to climate change will be a cost of more than US$10 billion per year by 2025. (GINA)