–President Ali tells stakeholders of ‘Climate Vulnerable Forum’

PRESIDENT, Dr. Irfaan Ali has opined that the development of any national, regional or international climate plan must be comprehensive and inclusive.

The Head of State made this comment during his discussion with stakeholders of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a voluntary, non-treaty intergovernmental organisation for vulnerable developing countries.

This side event at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) 26, was organised by the Commonwealth and was chaired by Her Excellency Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh.

During the discussion, President Ali advised that no plan should assess climate change in isolation from food security, debt security, or national prosperity, since climate change has a negative domino effect on development.

He said: “We are faced with nothing new, but we are to make choices that will decide how well or if we survive in the future. Climate change affects us all, but unfortunately for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Low-lying Coastal Countries, it affects us in a worse way.”

As a result, the President said there must be differentiated action and differentiated commitments.

President Ali updated the group on Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) and related that it is a pathway to safeguarding the country’s standing forest while creating value and supporting the livelihoods of people through the implementation of development strategies.

The Head of State added that Guyana will be signing the declaration on forests. He said that while reports would suggest that the declaration is starting from scratch, the conversation on forests has been going on “forever,” and there are countries which would have started to implement a number of measures, and that progress cannot be overlooked or discarded.

“It is something the Commonwealth can also champion in the prosperity plan because the prosperity plan is for us to achieve the targets while not putting people and their livelihoods in an unsustainable framework,” Dr. Ali said.

The President said that Guyana looks forward to working with the global community on not only addressing the fundamental issues of climate change, but, more importantly, addressing the issues of fairness in financing.

He said that while there’s a lot of talk about private sector involvement, it should not take away the responsibility that the developed world has in terms of providing financing to vulnerable countries and the climate change agenda.

The Guyanese leader also noted that his country has been contributing significantly in the form of its standing forest that is as big as England and Scotland combined.

“We have, in the past, entered into a carbon credit agreement with the Kingdom of Norway—one of the largest per capita agreements, but what we are seeing is the level of concern for standing forests or forests that are alive is not there, and this is something that we want to champion, and it is something that leads to prosperity,” President Ali posited. (Office of the President)