Guyana set to benefit from climate change deal with Norway.

Guyana’s climate change advocacy for compensation for countries that are preserving their standing forests is about to bear fruit with the imminent sealing of a deal with Norway which was initiated by President Bharrat Jagdeo earlier this year.

This flies sharply in the face of some who have been speaking derogatorily about the sterling efforts of President Jagdeo on the climate change front.

The President’s advocacy on this global issue undoubtedly has caught the attention of many countries of both the developing and developed world and has heightened discussion and debate on the international arena, thereby significantly increasing awareness across the globe. And therefore this recent development is quite encouraging and heartening.

Ambassador Hans Brattskar, Director of Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative who headed a team here and met President Bharrat Jagdeo and top administration officials for talks on the plan spoke in glowing terms of Guyana’s preservation of its forests.

“But we see Guyana as an important country with a significant forest cover and the people and a government that is very much committed to preserving the forest and to making use out of it in a sustainable manner and that is important for us,” he declared, adding a very pertinent point we have one global climate, we all share that and we have to work together to find a solution. Norway shares with Guyana the goal of including reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation of forests in developing countries in a new climate regime.”

Mr. Brattskar also acknowledged that President Jagdeo has been a leading voice in the international lobby to ensure avoided deforestation and forest degradation is included in the solution to the international climate crisis under a new climate regime, adding “we support that kind of thinking.”

Under the agreement Norway is prepared to provide performance-based, substantial and sustained compensation for the progress Guyana makes in limiting emissions from deforestation at low levels and further decreasing forest degradation. In cooperation with Guyana and its multilateral partners, this will include contributing to the development and implementation of the necessary strategies and reforms, capacity building, and developing, funding and implementing suitable low-carbon and adaptation investments.

This is a significant development which is in unison with what President Jagdeo has been championing on the international arena.