IN recent years, there has been much discussion on the issue of Climate Change in its various aspects.  For example, some countries in the international community are willing to pay others to keep their forests unfelled, since trees absorb carbon dioxide (Co2), the greenhouse gas responsible for Climate Change.  Guyana has benefited from such a subsidy from Norway.  Another aspect of Climate Change is flooding caused by rises in the ocean levels and the confusion in rainfall patterns.  The coastland of Guyana, where most of the population lives, is below sea level and is particularly affected by these trends and is now subject to regular floodings that disrupt lives and cause great economic loss.

In November last year, Dr Julie Rozenburg, Senior Economist at the World Bank who was one of the authors of the Bank’s recent Report on Climate Change, visited Guyana and advised that those communities which are vulnerable to flooding and where there are no resources to protect them should begin to relocate to higher land.  Such relocation should be sustainable and should be gradual to cause the least disruption.  She also referred to the concept of Silica City, which Dr Irfaan Ali had envisioned when he served as   Minister of Housing.  Silica City is to be built up the Soesdyke- Linden Highway in the hilly sand and clay belt and would be the first major urban development in decades outside the coastal plain.  Since Dr Ali became President, the idea has been resuscitated and it is reported that several international investors are interested in the concept.

The media reporter who had interviewed Dr Rozenburg also managed to speak with Dr Ashni Singh, the Minister of Finance and asked him what is the government’s policy on Climate Change and what was being done to effectuate it.  Though Climate Change was not his remit, Dr Singh always tries to help any member of the public who approaches him and politely accommodated the reporter.   He explained to him how unrealistic was the glib talk of removing Guyana’s capital and population into the higher and healthier lands of the interior: “The coast”, said Dr Singh, “comprises the vast majority of Guyana’s population, economic activities, administrative structure – Parliament, Government, Judiciary and so on.  To move the capital and the population and their economic activities from the coast to the interior in a wholesale manner would be complicated and be prohibitively costly.”  Dr Singh went on to explain to him government’s present thinking and policy on the matter.

The government’s policy is three-tiered: internationally, government will continue to support all measures and activities to limit Climate Change and meet all targets.  In this regard, serious and sustained efforts are being taken to move away from fossil fuels and have cheaper power by the use of solar and hydropower.

The government will continue to invest in sea defence structures to adequately protect the coast and drainage and irrigation would continue to be strengthened.

The third tier is strengthening the movement and settlement in the interior regions by decentralising, developing roads and other infrastructure, extending social services, and stimulating economic activity with new industries such as ecotourism.  Schemes such as Silica City and the extension of housing areas as those along East Coast of Demerara with the concomitant economic and social developments in such communities would be an element of that tier.

In the last several years, nine new towns have been created from villages such as Bartica and Rosehall and this column had advocated that a skilled city planner and designer be engaged to produce blueprints for their long-term development much as L’Enfant had designed Washington D.C.  The drainage systems  of these new towns should be carefully devised, taking into account Climate Change, so that there would not be a recurrence of the Georgetown situation.