GUYANA’S forest-conservation efforts continue to be recognised as a blueprint for sustainable development, with the latest acknowledgement of this coming from Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva, who has invited Guyana to present its model at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

This was disclosed following bilateral talks between Guyana’s President, Dr Irfaan Ali and Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva, on Thursday.

During a press briefing, President Ali said that the two leaders discussed the importance of addressing climate change.

“We have agreed that at the G20, Guyana will be invited in the person of the Vice-President [Bharrat Jagdeo] to make a presentation on Guyana models, but more importantly, on having a discussion with other forested countries in defining a global model that can be taken to COP29 and COP 30,” President Ali said.

Since 2007, Guyana has been lobbying for a structured carbon market-based mechanism to simultaneously preserve its forests and pursue development.

In 2009, the country launched the first Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) from a developing country, setting out a vision for inclusive, sustainable development, while simultaneously maintaining the country’s forests.

This paved the way for Guyana to enter a voluntary market. The country’s first deal was made with Norway and Guyana was able to earn some US$250 million to keep its forests intact.

Guyana continues to earn money for the greenhouse gases trapped by its standing forests after the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) issued the world’s first TREES credits to Guyana. The country’s forests store 19.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide.

Meanwhile, Brazil’s President Lula, on Thursday, said: “Guyana is undergoing a tremendous endeavour to take care of its forest, that’s why I invited Guyana to participate in the climate discussions of the G20 so that they can present the monetisation model they are undertaking here in terms of preserving the Guyana forest.”

Last year, Guyana held a side event and engaged in several discussions at the 28th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) in Dubai.

And while the conference concluded with enormous commitments and agreements reached, Vice-President Jagdeo had expressed disappointment that no headway was made to advance the carbon market.

“We thought that advancing the carbon markets will create greater incentives for countries that are forested, to ensure that they can raise money through the market mechanism to out compete alternate use and, therefore, preserve their forests without taking away the forest as a development tool in the arsenal of these countries.

“People live in the forest, they earn from the forest. The forests are not museum pieces for anybody in the northern part [of] our world and we had a setback on that,” Jagdeo had said.

Through Guyana’s sale of carbon credits, the country is able to generate funds to support climate adaptation and developmental projects in the hinterland regions of the country.