Guyana sits atop the global stage, balancing a unique title of being a leader in climate change solutions and a young oil-producing nation. The fastest-growing economy in the world, led by President Irfaan Ali, just two weeks into his second term in office, was interviewed by David Gelles of The New York Times on how Guyana is balancing its oil industry with being a leader in climate change.
Here is an excerpt of the Q&A-style article:
NYT: Is the global community actually making the financing available so that nations like Guyana can undergo the energy transition?
President Ali: Absolutely not. It’s ridiculous sometimes to listen to the pledges, because none of the pledges is actualized. When you ask the developing world to adopt measures to limit the impact of whatever we are doing on climate, you’re asking us to transition when we have major issues on energy equality, energy poverty, energy access. And then to complicate issues, these very countries are asked to function in a digital world, so they are already suffering from immense poverty because they were never able to adapt to the Industrial Revolution. Now they are moving into the digital revolution with A.I. that they will never be able to catch up with. And at the same time, basic things like clean water, access to electricity — major segments of the population don’t have this. This is something that has severely impacted the quality and equity of global policy-making. And there is no clear path and no clear plan as to how we are going to address these issues.
NYT: One thing that has not stagnated is temperature rise. What will this mean for the people of Guyana?
President Ali: If we did not have the type of revenue stream that we have now, it would have meant debt. It would have meant destruction. It would have meant our economy just falling apart. Guyana is a new oil producer, but we are using the resource to finance our energy transition, to build resilient infrastructure, to support the region that we are in, to invest in livelihood options that will keep our forest standing, which stores many gigatons of carbon. We’re investing in solar farms, hydro, natural gas, wind and biomass, all aimed at transitioning to a low-emission energy grid. We are building off-grid systems, solar farms, wind farms for the hinterland community, where the Indigenous people live.
NYT: You talk about how, for Guyana, the answer to coping with a hotter world is in fact being funded by the production of more fuels that are causing that warming. That of course is sort of the conundrum in a nutshell, right?
President Ali: I don’t see it as a problem. Your question in the context of Guyana is quite different from your question in the Middle East, or your question in one of the industrial countries. For us, it’s quite different. How do you see away out? We have this standing forest that has been there for all our lives, which the world does not see a value in. It’s easy. If the world says, “We’re going to pay a fair-market rate for the forests that have ecological and biodiversity sources that also have a price,” then it will allow countries like ours that are forested to then use the revenue from that to protect our land, to invest in health, to invest in education, human development and infrastructure, to remain competitive and to build a strong and resilient economy. So the moral question is: Who can produce what the world needs in the least environmentally damaging way? Because let’s be clear on this too. We can’t be naïve. The world will need fossil fuel a long time into the future.