A Champion is Honoured

Guyana could earn more from forests than all its exports, says President Jagdeo
Written by Johann Earle
Saturday, 15 May 2010 03:35
At an appreciation ceremony in honour of his UNEP Champions of the Earth Award
President Bharrat Jagdeo says the green economy could be the biggest sector in Guyana and should carbon prices continue their trend and the externalities of fossil fuels valued at the right price, Guyana could earn in the neighbourhood of US$500 million a year. He said that this is more than Guyana earns annually on a net basis from exports of rice, sugar, gold, diamond and bauxite combined.

The President was yesterday speaking at the Guyana National Conference Centre at Liliendaal,on the East Coast of Demerara, at a reception in his honour for his being one of the recipients of the 2010 United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) Champions of the Earth Award. The President received the award in Seoul, Republic of Korea, on April 22 last. Jagdeo has announced that he will donate the US$40,000 as part of the prize to the Amerindian peoples.
President Jagdeo said that from all the assessments done by almost every academy of science have recognised that the world is moving to disaster caused by anthropogenic action.
He said that the current economic model which has contributed to the development of the first world is unsustainable.
He made the point that the focus Guyana is placing on the protection of the forest has to do with the kind of world that the country wants to leave for the generations to come and the quality of life that people would want to have in that future.
“Clearly, everyone needs to act,” he said. Jagdeo said that with climate change, a country cannot build borders or walls to isolate itself from the consequences. “You cannot enact tough immigration policies or stringent health standards to avoid being impacted by climate change,” he said. He explained that a ton of carbon emitted in one of the developed countries of the world has the same impact as a ton of carbon emitted by a neighbouring country.

Jagdeo said that the consequences of climate change are so great that many countries like Guyana will not be able to deal with them. He said that it has been recognised already from an economic perspective that if Guyana were to assess the challenges climate change poses from an economic perspective, it will be clear that there will no other choice but to get involved. “This is not out of the whims of Jagdeo or the PPP Government that we want to be involved. This is out of necessity. People shouldn’t be praised for that…for doing what is necessary,” he said.
“If we don’t fix this problem and the planet continues to warm up, the forest that we so cherish will die,” he said, explaining that the forest will not be able to survive in the warmer climate, adding that the ecosystem will change. He said that ecosystem services such as the [regulation of] rainfall patterns will be altered. He said that crops that are cultivated in Guyana will not be able to grow in climate that is significantly warmer.
Explaining that the economy loses 10 percent to flooding every year, Jagdeo said that the effects of climate change could increase these losses many times over. He said that because of flooding, Guyana has for the past ten years been losing about US$250 million because of floods, according to a study done by McKinsey and Company, a consultancy firm. He said that a climate change resultant loss in the economy will mean fewer jobs for Guyanese, more health risks due to additional vectors and increased spending to protect the coast from a rising sea. This, he said, would mean diversion from the planned spending on social sectors like health and education. He said that should all the impacts be assessed, one will realise that climate change can present a nightmare scenario in Guyana should efforts not be made to mitigate it.
He said that no development strategy could be crafted without taking note of the effects of climate change. “So this is out of necessity that we are doing this,” he said. “Secondly we recognise that the model of development that many of the rich countries of the world used to get where they are, that that model of development would lead even faster to a disastrous situation if it were to continue.”


He said that if China and India and many of the countries that are now emerging on the world stage, growing, expanding and creating more wealth, were to use the same development model that the current industrialized world used, “then we will never, ever be able to achieve the targets set by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change to limit greenhouse gas [concentrations] to two degrees Celsius. In fact, we could reach…a tipping point, where the situation becomes catastrophic,” he said. “Clearly, we can’t use that model and that model is still being used now by many countries.”
He said that no one has suggested any economic model that costs the carbon put out into the atmosphere, and he noted that these greenhouse gases have huge costs both current and future.
On the current considerations for mitigation action, Jagdeo said that the developed countries pay much political and technical attention to renewable resources, retrofitting of buildings to make them more energy efficient and a number of other options all geared to cut emissions. But he said that scant attention is paid to the option of reducing deforestation and forest degradation, which combined contribute about 20 percent of carbon emissions.
He said that if the world does not find the money to fix climate change, the world itself is threatened, unlike the financial crisis, which resulted in the loss of welfare and investments for some persons.
Jagdeo said that many people have seen the wisdom of the argument made in favour of using the forest as a carbon abatement solution. But he noted that the will to commit financially to the concept is just not as strong. He said that the developed countries are still unwilling to change the model of development or pay for an abatement solution that entails preservation of standing forests, which are mostly in developing countries.
Speaking at the ceremony, Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme, Kiari Liman-Tinguiri, said that it was his privilege to be present to pay tribute to President Jagdeo on his award. He spoke of the Low Carbon Development Strategy and said that the UN is optimistic that there will eventually be the buy in from those who might still be sceptical of it. He said that important for this buy in is the completion of the validation system that the Government has commenced work on.
Noting that climate change has the potential to constrict developing countries ability to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), he said that in three months there will be a meeting to access progress being made on the achievement of the goals, targeted to be reached by the year 2015.
Also speaking at the event was Marco Nicola, Resident Inter-American Development Representative. He said that the fact that President Jagdeo was conferred with the award came as no surprise to him. He said that even as the President was being honoured for the award, he continues to think of practical ways of resolving the conflict between the preservation of natural resources and finding ways to provide jobs for a country’s population. “Guyana aims to show to the world that environmentally sustainable development can and will happen.”
At the end of the event, Jagdeo urged the members of the audience to become involved in their communities in the fight against climate change and also encouraged the naysayers to get on board in the efforts.