THE Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) of Guyana continues to be used as a template for preserving forests worldwide and reducing climate change.

During his visit to India, the Vice President of Guyana, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, took advantage of the opportunity and shared Guyana’s success story in obtaining carbon credits by maintaining over 99 per cent of the country’s forests.

Vice President Jagdeo encouraged world leaders to avoid the extremes that often define the global debate in his presentation at the inaugural session of the World Sustainable Development Summit 2023 in New Delhi, India. He said that nature should be developed and protected regardless of its effects on people. In between those two extremes, Dr. Jagdeo believes that some solutions and answers can be found if countries are willing to work together for that common goal.

During his official visit, Dr. Jagdeo stated in one of his main presentations, “We’d never achieve Net Zero or a 1.5 degree without bringing forests as part of the mitigation solution,” adding that “deforestation alone would cause about 15 percent of global greenhouse gases.”

“It’s important that we find solutions for this nature-based problem of deforestation. Now, forests can remove nearly 10 gigatons of CO2 equivalent every year by 2050,” according to him.

Dr. Jagdeo emphasized: “It could provide more than 25 per cent of the solution to keep the world on a 1.5 trajectory by 2030. So, clearly the case has been made that forests are important for climate.”

He lamented that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) discussions historically need to be more reflective in a way that will help preserve these forests and create incentives so that countries with forests can maintain them.

The Vice President also informed the audience, leaders and other officials that Guyana, since 2009, earned from the country’s forest carbon credits at a price of $5 per ton under the Guyana-Norway Agreement. He also stated that $220 million had been earned by Guyana and was used to support indigenous land titling, climate adaptation and mitigation measures, as well as other initiatives.

In 2009, Jagdeo, the former President of Guyana and current Vice President, recognised that though Guyana is a small country, because of its vast forests, it is strategically positioned to contribute tremendously to showcasing how forests can be part of the climate solution.

Dr. Jagdeo played an integral role in being the pioneer in developing and advancing Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) by ensuring that Guyana had a strategic leadership role in global environment ‘politics.’