PRESIDENT Donald Ramotar is not yet of the view that Guyanese should move from the coastland to higher ground because of the vagaries of climate change.

Still pushing to have the administration expand new areas of housing development in the Coastal Plain, the President reminded his audience of the ‘Silica City’ initiative, set to be constructed along the Soesdyke/Linden highway, even as he addressed the launch of the ‘1000 Homes’ initiative on Friday last.
Housing Minister Irfaan Ali has been pushing to have this new area along the Linden highway developed, and has been touting the effects and vulnerability of the coast primarily as a result of climate change; but the President has said that while he has seen countries with communities thriving even while below sea level, he still looks to the future; and as such, the work of the Office of Climate Change, located within the Office of the President, has been accelerating.
Shyam Nokta heads that unit which has been proactively seeking to address the challenge that low-lying countries in the Caribbean and countries like Guyana have been facing.
The Office of Climate Change (OCC) was established in 2008 to tackle the growing threat of climate change and its attendant consequences, and according to Nokta, “We will continue to examine this in a holistic way, looking at infrastructure-type interventions such as continuing to expand, strengthen and rehabilitate sea and river defences, and to improve drainage and irrigation systems,” aimed at strengthening Guyana’s resilience to climate change.
In a recent exclusive interview with the Guyana Chronicle, Nokta said the momentum has definitely picked up since the country’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) was launched in 2009.
He sees this year as pivotal for the Office of Climate Change to maintain the momentum.
Last March, President Ramotar had provided an update on the LCDS, and had identified the areas of priority to be examined within the next two years; and Nokta said that among those priorities would be interventions to build Guyana’s climate resilience.
Nokta said that while focus is currently placed on mitigation and managing the forest, the country’s resilience must also be increased. However, he related that the OCC would also be working to address the planning systems by undertaking new projects. Nokta says that, at the same time, work would continue, from an economic standpoint, to look at low carbon growth sectors.
The Head of Guyana’s OCC asserted that, as the LCDS programme continues to be advanced, Guyana’s pioneering efforts are being recognized internationally, and more countries are willing to work along with Guyana and share its lessons and experiences.
In 2009, former President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo proffered an idea and a vision to forge a newer, low carbon economy for Guyana. That vision was translated into the LCDS, the strategy of which entails a number of key initiatives that seek to innovatively and creatively propel the country beyond the traditional development model, sometimes referred to as the High Carbon Development Model.
Nokta advised that this model has traditionally been what many countries have used to grow their own economies, but those countries were heavily dependent on the exploitation of natural resources, whereas the goal of the LCDS is to examine ways to forge a more low carbon growth path.
He said that another aim of the LCDS is to examine how Guyana’s forest can be deployed in the global fight against climate change, but stressed that while that is important, it would not be done at the expense of the country’s legitimate development aspirations. Moreover, he said, this must be pursued along with the right incentives being in place and, very importantly, to ensure that the sovereignty of the forest is maintained.
“At the end of the day, it has to be an economically rational decision. If we are going to protect our forest for our own benefit and for the benefit of the international community, then protection and preservation have to also compete with the other potential uses of the forest, the other drivers of the economy,” he asserted.
In implementing the LCDS, he said, a number of interlinked challenges had to be examined. The first is the way in which the forest can be valued alive more than dead, the second is how to stimulate growth using clean energy, and the third is how to embrace other types of economic activities that would allow the forest to be maintained. The fourth challenge, he said, is how, in doing all of this, the country’s resilience against climate change can be increased.
According to Nokta, the prime challenge started to be solved when Guyana created the world’s second largest interim REDD+ partnership with the Government of Norway, through which Guyana has, to date, earned approximately US$115M.
Nokta said that Guyana has thus far earned three successive payments, each based on performance. He explained that, at the end of each year, Guyana is subjected to an independent audit, the results of which are used by Norway as the basis for making payments to Guyana. Nokta believes that the Guyana/Norway model will continue to be executed, and he revealed that the Climate Change Office is about to begin preparations to qualify for a fourth payment.
Nokta said that the revenue earned from this arrangement with Norway is combined with other sources of financing from private investors and the country’s national budget and utilised for implementing various projects and investments under the LCDS.
He said that significant progress has been made over the years, and, more specifically, progress has been made in maintaining Guyana’s forest and its standing as one of the world’s lowest rates of deforestation. According to him, this has been the trigger for the successive payments.
He emphasised that the country has been able to efficiently manage its deforestation rate, while at the same time develop its natural resource sector and expand its extracting sector.
“It provides a working example that we can continue to develop and expand our natural resource sector; and if we do it in the right way, we can at the same time maintain a very low environmental footprint,” he said. An important aspect of the LCDS is the development of the Amaila Falls Hydropower facility, which Nokta said is expected to start generation by 2017. Once that happens, he said, Guyana would become one of the world’s premium consumers of clean energy. He added that not only would the country
be able to address the issue of high cost of energy, but the more stable and reliable source of energy would bring a number of additional benefits for the Guyanese nation.
He also advised that renewable energy is being promoted on a smaller scale at the household level, particularly in hinterland communities, because through the Hinterland Electrification Programme, some 11,000 solar home units have being installed in homes across the country at no cost to recipients.
Nokta alluded to two projects that were launched within the last year: the Amerindian Development Fund, and the Micro and Small Enterprise project. Under the Amerindian Development Fund, he said, approximately 166 Amerindian villages, communities and settlements will be supported in regard to implementation of their community development plans, within which are low carbon economic opportunities that are specific to their community situations. He said that, this year, in the first phase, 127 communities have already been identified to benefit from this programme.
He explained that the recently launched Micro and Small Enterprise project is aimed at providing financial support and mentoring to small entrepreneurs and vulnerable groups.
Nokta was confident that those projects being implemented with financing earned from Norway would start to create green jobs and a new wave of opportunities. He maintained that all of this would be occurring while the traditional sectors are still being nurtured; but he pointed out that projects like the LCDS are not without challenges.
Nevertheless, he stressed, it has been a learning opportunity for the country, and it has been seen not as a government initiative, but as a national one.
Nokta related that, in the past two years, the LCDS has been targeted at the level of Parliament and, more specifically, by the joint opposition. He noted that, in 2012, the allocation for LCDS in the national budget was cut to $1; while in 2013 it was reduced from $20B to $2B, and he said the way in which the cut was executed raises a lot of questions, because no rationale was provided. According to him, in 2012, no reason was given for the cut to the LCDS budget; and in 2013, the very few questions asked
related only to the Amaila Falls project.
Nokta emphasised that those cuts are going to affect much more than Amaila.
He added that they will affect all the other LCDS projects identified for implementation this year. “We have to be mindful of the threat to the LCDS that the budget cuts will pose, and the intention of these cuts. So this will definitely present a challenge to how we move forward, but it will in no way stymie the efforts of moving the LCDS forward,” he disclosed.
Nokta further stressed the importance of the LCDS programme, noting that the effects of climate change are being felt with more frequency and intensity around the world.
“I think we’ve moved beyond establishing whether climate change is real.
Scientists have provided enough evidence to support it, and the impact is being felt across the world. No country is immune to climate change,” he said.
He said urgent action has to be taken to minimize greenhouse gas emissions, in order to address catastrophic climate change. Nevertheless, Guyana continues to be very involved in international climate change discussions, and specifically in the negotiations that are part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
He also stressed that credit should be given to former President Bharrat Jagdeo for pioneering the LCDS. He said the international recognition that Dr Jagdeo has received is testimony to the leadership that he has provided, not only to Guyana, but to the international community in the area of low carbon development.