TO commemorate International Youth Day, a panel discussion and exhibition was held at the Pegasus Hotel by the Coordinator of Projects financed through the Guyana Norway Agreement, the Environmental Awareness Coordinator, and the Senior Manager at DAI, SBG. Young people from all over Guyana attended the event, which was centred on the theme, “Green skills for youth: towards a sustainable world.”

In his presentation, coordinator of the projects, Nikolaus Oudkerk explained that the LCDS, which spans all sectors, is Guyana’s national development strategy, which the nation can take to develop and flourish in a non-polluting, low-carbon approach. He posited that preventing climate change and its detrimental repercussions, such as floods and droughts, entail using resources sustainably.

In essence, low carbon approaches denote maintaining a low level or reducing carbon dioxide, and carbon dioxide substitutes like methane and nitrous oxide. It is a known fact that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide negatively affect the environment and lead to climate change, global warming, and their detrimental repercussions. Mr. Ourkerk explained at the panel session that utilising resources sustainably entails preserving their availability for use by future generations.

“Of course, it is you the youths that will inherit, live and carry on in this world. So, immediately, we see that one of the benefits is inheriting and being able to live in a healthy and habitable country or environment where we have resources that can be used and traded for financial and economic gain. This is of significant importance when you think of the amount of disease that can be spread from pollution, the associated deaths and shortened life spans of people, and the poverty associated with not having resources”, Oudkerk stated.

In order to examine another layer in more detail, Oudkerk examined the four key strategic or theme areas of the LCDS 2030 and explained how the strategies will help youth/people. Taking a look at the topic of promoting future growth, Oudkerk related that this focuses on, among other things, preparing Guyana’s youth through education at various levels to prepare themselves for employment in traditional and non-traditional low carbon sectors. He explained Guyanese are more optimistic as they become more environmentally and climate-conscious of the activities they are engaged in.

According to him, the International Centre for Biodiversity Research is one of the institutes that the government will establish, and he has been working with the National Centre for Educational Resource Development, the University of Guyana, and technical vocational institutions to align their curricula with various LCDS components.

The strategy area of fostering future growth also examines clean and renewable energy and how Guyanese must accommodate a tripling in energy consumption over the course of the next seven years, and maintain low carbon development. The LCDS 2030, outlines a pathway to accomplishing this, Oudkerk added.

He further said that young business owners in the manufacturing and service industries will require a consistent supply of electricity. This field also examines low-carbon digital infrastructure, such as quick and reliable internet connectivity, in addition to low-carbon infrastructure for the road, water, and air. Youths today live in a very digital age, which will benefit not only distance study but also social media communication and showing off your talents, hobbies, and skills.

“Creating new incentives for a low carbon economy” he said, “We examined how the forests contribute to the fight against climate change, considered sustainable forestry and low-impact mining, which both have the potential to create jobs and income and discussed how we can use our forests’ ability to regulate climate and other ecosystem services, such as those provided by the ocean economy, to generate income on the global market and use that income to fund a variety of initiatives that will benefit all parties involved, such as the creation of jobs.’’

The Micro and Small Enterprise Development Project, one of the initiatives indicated in the first LCDS (LCDS 2009), and already launched, will be a follow-up to one of these projects to offer more jobs. The initiative was first financed by revenue from the forest climate services we provided as part of our collaboration with the Kingdom of Norway.

Guyana collaborated with commercial banks and microfinance organisations on this project to provide approximately 220 loans and 590 grants for business owners in low-carbon industries. There was also no cost for instruction. Over 2,200 jobs in low-carbon industries were created by this programme and/or maintained.

Additionally, the project coordinator emphasised collaborations were made with banks to lower interest rates from as high as 14 percent down to six percent.

‘Protecting against Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss’ is the third strategic area. In order to prevent a repeat of what happened in 2005, when devastating floods cost our nation’s economy 60% of its GDP, and to ensure that we have plans in place to deal with sea level rise and extreme droughts, this involves increasing adaptation capacity and strengthening our nation’s resilience to the negative consequences of climate change.

“Aligning with Global Climate and Biodiversity Goals” is the fourth strategy area, which includes, among other things, the Sustainable Development Goals and the global ambition of Net Zero by 2050. As you are aware, net zero refers to a situation in which the amount of greenhouse gases we release into the atmosphere is equal to or lower than the amount we capture or take in from the atmosphere and store. As we sequester more than we give out, Guyana is already net zero and is a predominant net carbon sink, while the rest of the world strives to be. About 85% of Guyana is covered in forests, which annually absorb about 154 million tons of carbon dioxide.