GUYANA is aiming to balance its low-carbon, sustainable development pursuits with the development of its profitable oil-and-gas industry and even as it does so, the country will continue to store more of the harmful gases than it emits.

This is according to Pradeepa Bholanauth, the Senior Director for Climate and REDD+ at the Ministry of Natural Resources, who spoke about Guyana’s updated Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) during a recent virtual forum.

As per this strategy, Guyana plans to maintain its forests, continue its advocacy for greater earth-saving climate actions, pursue more renewable energy projects and secure financing for low carbon development and sustaining livelihoods.

With the nascent oil-and-gas industry, however, concerns have been raised that Guyana’s low-carbon pursuits may conflict with oil-and-gas development. This is so because the oil- and-gas industry is notorious for emitting harmful gases and contributes to the continued use of fossil fuels.

But Bholanauth posited that even with the existing number of Floating, Production, and Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels — commonly referred to as oil ships — operating offshore, Guyana will still suck in more carbon and store it in its rainforests than the country emits.

“Guyana will continue to be net positive because of that asset of the forest,” Bholanauth emphasised.

There are two oil ships currently operating offshore in Guyana’s waters and combined, both ships can produce at least 330,000 barrels of oil daily.

Guyana’s forests store about 20 billion gigatonnes of carbon with about 85 per cent of Guyana’s landmass covered in forests, making it the country with the second-highest forest cover in the world.

This expansive forest cover has allowed the country to suck in tonnes of harmful carbon dioxide, a harmful gas that exacerbates climate change, once emitted into the atmosphere. Cutting the trees down would mean releasing the harmful gases into the atmosphere, thereby causing further harm to the environment.

Given Guyana’s massive forest potential, well able to offset the amount of harmful gases produced by the country, Bholanauth assured the virtual audience that Guyana has a solid plan for balancing low-carbon pursuits with oil-and-gas development.

Even so, however, she said that greater efforts to reduce the country’s reliance on fossil fuels (such as using less diesel which is burnt by the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) to provide electricity) are needed.

That is why, Bholanauth said, the country is now pursuing a new “energy mix.” With the electricity demand expected to triple in the next few years, Guyana is seeking to tap into its natural gas resources and other renewable forms of energy such as hydro, wind and solar power.

“It [the forest] is not going to be the single solution to everything we do and we can’t just look to the forest and say, ‘we won’t do anything else,’ because the forest is there conserving carbon,” Bholanauth emphasised.

She also highlighted that Guyana supports the removal of fossil-fuel subsidies — a move meant to deter countries from using increasing amounts of these fuels, and a strong global carbon price. Guyana hopes to sell carbon credits in the coming months, which basically means the country can be paid for preserving its forests.