Guyana builds LCDS thrust in New York

FROM popular actor Harrison Ford to Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Guyana last week continued to garner support for its Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) at several key events in New York.

President Bharrat Jagdeo was among more than 100 world leaders invited to the special climate change summit convened by United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon and he continued plugging Guyana’s case, building on the country’s high international profile and leadership role in the global climate change battle.


The special Climate Change summit was held on Tuesday at the United Nations headquarters in New York, immediately prior to Wednesday’s opening of the two-day 64th UN General Assembly at the same venue.


“The climate change summit was excellent. I think for the first time, leaders themselves got involved in the issue of climate change (but) as for the General Assembly (GA), I think it was an anti-climax, after the special summit on climate change; it was just people going through the motion at the GA,” the Guyanese head-of-state told the Sunday Chronicle in an interview at the UN yesterday.


With the clock ticking towards this December’s climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, President Jagdeo reiterated his optimism that world leaders are much closer to ‘sealing the deal’ when they meet again in just under 80 days time.


His optimism is being fueled, in part, by the successful outcome of a crucial round-table meeting he co-chaired earlier in the week with the British Prime Minister.


Financing was one of the main issues discussed during the round-table meeting, and President Jagdeo said participants, having recognised that climate change is the pre-eminent geopolitical and economic issue of the 21st Century, acknowledged that it would take as much as, and maybe even more, US$100B to fight the impacts at this point in time.


Speaking with the Chronicle shortly after that session, President Jagdeo said the idea was to get leaders together to have a free-flowing discussion about what it would take to “seal the deal” in Copenhagen, and to “break the deadlock which seems to be part of the negotiations at this time.”


According to the Guyanese head-of-state, the discussions were centered around five political areas the leaders felt would be useful to the future. These, he said, ranged from deep cuts by the developed countries, aimed at assisting mitigation actions from the developing world, to adaptation and institutional governance structure to deal with the environment in the future.


“These were just some of the areas that we thought we needed clarifications for …and then of course, the very important matter of financing… So we had a free-flowing discussion, and we think that we have made some progress towards having a better understanding of what it would take to have this deal in Copenhagen on the part of all the players -- the developed countries, the developing world -- and what quantum of financing is needed,” President Jagdeo said.


According to him, the leaders immediately recognised the magnitude of the problem and “started talking about a large sum of money… in excess of US$100B.”


Those figures get closer to the sums required, he said, noting that in the past, those figures used to range in the tens of millions of dollars, and that clearly, would not be adequate for mitigation and adaptation action, and wouldn’t have led to a deal in Copenhagen.


“So I think [that] out of the round-table, we had leaders participating, and we have built some level of momentum and optimism that we may be able to secure this deal in Copenhagen,” President Jagdeo told the Chronicle.


IN THE GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT
While in New York, the President did more interviews with leading global media agencies and newspapers.


He was interviewed by Reuters, one of the largest news agencies in the world; the American TV network, CNN; the BBC, and he also met the editorial board of the prestigious New York Times.


The Guardian newspaper of London also carried the full text of the President’s remarks at the `Team Earth’ public event in Greeley Square, New York on Monday last when he shared the spotlight with movie actor and environmentalist, Harrison Ford.


President Jagdeo, who is slated to be back home in Guyana tomorrow morning, was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and was scheduled for an interview with the Economist yesterday.


The Guardian headlined the President’s Monday speech at the Greeley Square event as ‘Guyana is a model of forest protection that could solve the climate crisis’.


In that speech, President Jagdeo stressed that a deal at the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark in December must enable countries like Guyana to generate an income by conserving forests rather than cutting them down.


In his interview with Reuters, the President noted that he wants to turn this country into one of the world's most environmentally progressive countries by preserving vast swathes of tropical rain forest -- if rich nations pay for it.


"We can generate money from preserving the forests; we can use these resources to invest in low-carbon opportunities, and we can use some of the money to make our economy climate-resilient," Mr. Jagdeo said.


Protecting forests is crucial, he said, as destruction of tropical forests releases more carbon dioxide than all the world's cars, trucks, planes and trains combined.


He said his preservation model could be replicated in other countries, and incorporated into a new climate change agreement to be signed in Copenhagen.


"By Copenhagen, we can show a real country model working that would address all of the issues that have come up in the negotiations," he said.


The President said the biggest stumbling blocks to making his model work were persuading rich countries that payments they make to poor ones would be used transparently, and convincing poor countries they would not give up sovereignty when they agree to set aside forests for conservation.


These were among the points he stressed later in the week in New York.


Mr. Jagdeo was among 13 Heads of State and Government and senior ministers, as well as the President of the World Bank, at the High-Level Event Mr. Ban Ki-moon convened on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD).


Under current proposals, a REDD mechanism would provide financial incentives for developing countries to stop illegal logging, and a system for countries to offset their carbon emissions by investing in projects promoting sustainable forest management.


‘REDD+’, an enhanced and updated version of the concept, would add a focus on forest preservation and carbon conservation.


MOVE BEYOND FRINGES
Mr. Jagdeo agreed that REDD provided the “most cost-effective abatement solution” in the climate change debate. But while it could deliver immediate results, it had not received the acclaim of other issues, like renewable energy and energy efficiency.


He said one reason for that was a focus on problems with the mechanism, rather than its delivery potential. Ongoing pilot projects, such as those cited by the World Bank, were supposed to provide further information on that potential, but it was past time to wait for “lessons learned,” he said.


“The task is before us today,” he said, stressing that financial facilities available through the World Bank were nowhere near the scale of the resources needed. It was time for talk to move beyond the issue’s fringes and determine whether adequate funds would be made available.


To that end, he called for an interim financing in the order of 1.5 cents per day for each person from the Annex I countries, as well as sufficient market and fund mechanisms in the longer term. “If we can’t provide adequate funding for the lowest cost solution [to climate change], how will the others be financed?”


In sync with Guyana’s arguments, Ban said that immediate action on reducing deforestation was a critical part of the solution to climate change, as he opened the REDD High-Level Event.


“Whichever way you look at it, protecting the world’s forests is a good investment,” he said, pointing to the social and economic benefits of forested lands, as well as their capacity for carbon storage. [Forests are believed to store more than 1 trillion tons of the world’s carbon, and deforestation is estimated to cause nearly 20 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.]


“We now need to mobilise further funding for REDD, and establish transparent systems to distribute payments and measure results,” he added.


Echoing the Secretary-General’s emphasis on the role a REDD mechanism could play at the conference in the Danish capital, World Bank President, Robert Zoellick offered examples whereby reforestation projects funded by the institution were providing local communities with social and economic benefits from the use of their forests.


The acrimony currently being heard in the international climate change negotiations were absent in those cases. Instead, the projects showed how reforestation and reducing deforestation could address climate change while protecting biodiversity and economic growth.


He said that while those projects were just start-up ventures  the “blue-collar workers” of climate change  they aimed to determine what worked on the ground so that REDD financing could be built into a global climate-change financing strategy. “Our job is to design the right tools to connect environmental stewards to funding opportunities.”


NO DEAL WITHOUT REDD
Emphasizing the funding nexus as he addressed the event on behalf of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, Prime Minister Michael Somare of Papua New Guinea said developing countries could achieve rapid and significant emission reductions at a reasonable cost, but in order to ensure success, “rich countries must get serious.”


The implications of not doing so could be profound, he said, because without financial support, the governments of developing countries would be unable to make a strong case to their people for preserving their forests.


In turn, it could prove impossible to avoid catastrophic levels of global warming in the most vulnerable countries without strong action on REDD+. There would be no agreement in Copenhagen without commitments to a robust REDD+ instrument, he said, stressing: “We cannot seal the deal without REDD+.”


Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of Norway said REDD would be part of a Copenhagen agreement and, to that end, his country had pledged US$500 million a year towards its implementation.


Like several other speakers from developed countries, however, he stressed that an international agreement would have to include standards and support mechanisms for verifying both emissions and the savings provided by forested lands, among other things. There was also a need for a transparent structure for financial incentives.


Voicing his agreement, Prime Minister Rudd said that in order for REDD to be credible with both public and private financial institutions, effective measurement was critical. To that end, he called for an “open, frank and public” debate, based on facts about the accuracy, cost and effectiveness of the REDD proposals.


Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom called for increased coordination among the various programmes and funds working in the field, saying that while public funding for forests was vital, there was an urgent need to harness private sector interest in protecting forests and to develop further new instruments to leverage them.


Among the Heads of State and Government speaking at the UN over the past week were President Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the Congo, and Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden (on behalf of the European Union).


The Deputy Prime Minster of Gabon also addressed the special Climate event, as did senior ministers from Indonesia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Japan, Colombia, China and Bangladesh.


Negotiations for Copenhagen among 190 nations are stalled over how to share the burden of curbs on gas emissions through 2020 between rich and poor nations, and how to raise perhaps $100 billion a year to help the poor combat warming and adapt to changes such as rising sea levels.


"What will constitute a good agreement in Copenhagen for me is one that has deep emission cuts, adequate financing, and improving forests as an abatement solution," Mr. Jagdeo told reporters in New York, adding that: "Developed countries need to take the biggest steps."


Although he wants to turn Guyana into a low-carbon economy that relies on green energy, he said only rich countries should face mandated deep cuts in carbon emissions.


Poor countries fear they might sacrifice future economic growth if they agree to mandatory reductions.


"We don't want to pass blame, but many of the developed countries used these traditional tools to get where they are today. Many people feel that they are kicking away the ladder now, they don't want us to use the same development tools, which were high carbon," he said, adding:


"We believe we don't have to go that route; we believe that we can shift to a low-carbon direction without compromising our development prospects, but we have to be helped to that route."


CNN also reported on the President’s stand on its website.


Australian Prime Minister Rudd on Monday lauded Guyana’s leadership on climate change.


In a meeting with President Jagdeo in New York, Rudd expressed his country’s interest in collaborating with Guyana in the global effort to address climate change.


President Jagdeo also took the opportunity to outline Guyana’s LCDS. Australia has committed to supporting Guyana’s Monitoring Reporting and Verification (MRV) System and remote monitoring of its forests.


This development builds on Guyana’s recent work on developing its MRV System in which several experts from the Australian Climate Office participated.


Prime Minister Rudd and President Jagdeo agreed to continue discussions at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Trinidad in November to explore other areas of bilateral cooperation on climate change, as well as regional initiatives for the Caribbean Community.


And in response to a question from the Sunday Chronicle, shortly after the conclusion of a high-level meeting between Caricom leaders and UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon at the UN headquarters yesterday afternoon on the critical areas that Guyana will be giving priority focus to between now and Copenhagen, President Jagdeo said: “We have created a bit of interest, as you would have seen over the past few days, so we will continue with the advocacy and the model building... We will be working with Norway and the others to add an international dimension to this LCDS model.”


On this note, the President disclosed that “within a matter of weeks,” Guyana will be signing an MOU with Norway, one which he said will hopefully add an international dimension to the LCDS model. (Additional reporting from Sharief Khan in Guyana)

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