PRESIDENT Irfaan Ali was interviewed on the BBC programme, Hardtalk, during the host’s visit to Guyana this week. It was a fine display of Third World (TW) assertion of its own developmental path by a rising star in the Global South, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali of Guyana.

His delivery reminds those like me who went to university in the 1970s of that golden period of the Non-Aligned Movement when post-colonial countries refused to shape their political economy and foreign policy, as dictated by the rich, developed West.

We will highlight two episodes in his delivery. First, he told his interviewer not to lecture the Guyanese nation on climate change when the host told him of the billions of emissions that oil production will release.

He looked at his interviewer with fierce conviction in his eyes and said, “I am going to lecture you on climate change.” He went on to explain how Guyana’s immeasurable forest holds 19.5 gigaton of carbon that the world benefits from and he went on to say: “That the world enjoys and that you don’t pay us for.”

We will come to an explanatory discussion on that first emanation. The interviewer quoted a statement from the Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo, when Mr. Jagdeo said that there will come a time when fossil fuel will go out and before that happens Guyana must hurry to pursue its production. The President was forthcoming with a rebuttal that only the dull, the ignorant and the stupid will not give him credit for.

In response to the Jagdeo quote, he told his interviewer, Guyana will definitely stay with oil production. Here are his words: “We have this natural resource and we are going to aggressively pursue this natural resource because we have to develop this country … we have to create the opportunities for our people because no one is bringing that for us.”
Please note that you will see with your own two eyes how the interviewer messed up one of the most inflexible members of the anti-oil lobby. One hopes after this interviewer, the anti-oil lobby will die away. But let’s get back to the two emanations from the President.

He said the world benefits from the enormous amount of carbons stored in our forest and Guyana does not get paid for maintaining a healthy climate through this carbon holding. And he is right. The chumps that go around talking about stopping the fossil fuel industry have not an ounce of understanding of the relation between the West and the Third World.

It is a tragedy that in Guyana we can have people calling for Guyana to be part of global efforts for a cleaner climate by stopping oil production after a Guyanese has authored one of the most inspiring history book titled, “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.” This was and remains Walter Rodney’s greatest contribution to the peoples of the TW.

Who is going to pay Guyana for switching to a cleaner environment? Whatever figure global leaders agree on, it isn’t going to happen. The developed West is not now or in the foreseeable going to transfer the needed sum to the Third World in the pursuit of climate change. This is not the way the West sees the TW.

There have been thousands of books and articles about the exploitation of the TW by the West that will never stop, yet we have misguided dullards in Guyana that think the West will provide Guyana with the funds necessary for a switch to alternative energy sources. If Guyana could help the world by stopping oil production, the West will be overjoyed but they will not fund an alternative economy in Guyana.

The second emanation from the President symbolises the state of affairs before the colonies got Independence and the state of affairs to this day. The President said that if we do not use that natural resource to provide opportunity for a future Guyana, no one else will.

The reasoning is simple – who is going to fill the void after we stop oil production? Where is the money coming from? It is only chumps that in the event of Guyana going out of the fossil fuel industry that believe we have countries lining up to thank us for saving the planet and will fill the income void that is left after oil.

Please watch the interview to see what the interviewer did with a wealthy woman who is part of the anti-oil lobby. She went on and on about the damage oil production will do to the climate. Then the interviewer asked her where Guyana is going to get an alternative income from. She could not answer the question. She didn’t. None of them can and none of them will.