IN his recent visit to the “Big Apple,” the President of Guyana, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, joined other world leaders in New York for the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly. In his presentation, President Ali stated that he believes that the continuing international debates to address climate change are “derailing” and lacking in balance.

President Ali further explained to a crowd at the Concordia’s Annual Summit’s side event on Monday that stakeholders from the oil and gas industry will need to have roundtable discussions in order for countries to achieve net zero.
According to him, “the conversation about net zero has been derailed to the extent that it has now become a conversation on how to end petroleum and not how we create a balanced set of policies and programmes to achieve net zero in a sustainable way.”

He continued, “For that balanced conversation to take place, it requires all the stakeholders around the table and not the locking out of companies and countries that are investing in oil and petroleum products.”

Achieving “net zero” involves striking a balance between the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere and the amount of carbon taken from it. When the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere is equal to, or less than, the amount removed, this balance, also known as net zero, will occur.

He also cited Guyana’s own Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), which offers a well-balanced framework for safeguarding the environment and the country’s forests. According to the president, he believes that Guyana’s LDCS could serve as a model for other forested nations.
He also noted that Guyana’s LCDS is a framework created to map a non-polluting path towards a new growth trajectory, where tropical forest nations have long advocated for the right valuation of the ecosystem services offered by the world’s remaining tropical forests through both public and private funding.

The President also said that this will make it possible for individuals who live in countries with forests to develop economies that operate with nature while also creating jobs and other economic opportunities.
The first TREES credit in history was issued to Guyana by the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) in December 2022. This was a significant event since it was the first time a nation received carbon credits created especially for the voluntary and compliant carbon markets for successfully halting forest loss and degradation, also known as jurisdictional REDD+.

After passing the ART Board of Directors’ approval and the independent validation and verification process, ART issued 33.47 million TREES credits to Guyana for the five-year period from 2016 to 2020. This opened the door for a historic deal between the government of Guyana and Hess Corporation, under which the oil companies decided to buy nearly one-third of all of Guyana’s projected and awarded credits through 2030.
The agreement will generate at least US$750 million for Guyana over the next ten years and is a significant step towards realising a goal that was first outlined in 2007.

President Ali explained, however, that nations like Guyana will profit more from their forests if a market is formed. “As I speak to you, there is still an involuntary market. There is no structured carbon market for the forest; when are we going to have that conversation as to how we are going to finalise the arrangement to have a full-pledged, structured market for carbon storage and the role of the forest?” he asked.
Also speaking at the function, Ivan Duque, a former president of Colombia, joined the conversation and stated that nations like Guyana require these monies to progress other industries and deliver better services, such as health and education, to their citizens.

According to what he said, “It is very important to understand [that] the global south has different challenges, and we need to finance the transition, not only the energy transition, the economic transition, and the environmental transition, in a sustainable way.”
While praising Guyana’s initiatives, Duque also claimed that, for far too long, authorities have neglected the significance of the forest in the fight against climate change. “We talk a lot [about] fighting climate change and becoming carbon neutral, but without the Amazon, none of the western hemisphere [Nationally Determined Contribution] NDCs will be met,” he said.

The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are each country’s self-described national climate pledges under the Paris Agreement, outlining what they will do to contribute to the global goal of pursuing 1.5°C, adapt to the effects of climate change, and make sure there is enough funding to support these efforts.
This is part of a weekly series on LCDS. The author can be contacted at cparkinson0206@gmail.com.