Dear Editor,
With respect to Erica Smith’s letter in your edition of July 13, captioned ‘The Low Carbon Development Strategy is for the development of the country,’ I respect the viewpoint, not just because it differs from mine, but also because I see Ms Smith as an individual with the fundamental right to her own independent thoughts. Further, I believe she is sincere and has come to these conclusions not simply because of group-thinking or any specific government affiliations (I am not aware of her affiliations). I am aware though that the document is a draft and, as a Guyanese citizen, I am happy to provide my viewpoints. The Minister of Agriculture’s statement in a letter to the Stabroek News was welcome when he stated that differing viewpoints are part of a healthy democracy. I’m not sure the Minister, or President for that matter, would appreciate the viewpoints of Guyanese citizens being characterized as a “tirade” or distractions.
However, I would like to clarify some inconsistencies so that our debate can be meaningful and without the vicious rhetoric that so often characterizes public and political discourse. The document I reviewed, downloaded from the LCDS website, was a 58-page version with no ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ section. I took this to be the most updated draft version and read it cover to cover, including the economic analysis and the appendices. I’m not sure if the FAQS were an insert to a hardcopy distributed to other citizens.
Nonetheless, I did review the FAQS on the website which provided one sentence to address the issue of oil exploration, but not emissions from oil. It stated, “Even if Guyana finds oil, the majority of this commodity will be for the export market.” This one sentence, to me, is not commensurate with the significance and potential of such an important resource. Let me say, oil is a big deal! It’s a big deal because it has the capacity to generate significant wealth as well as produce considerable carbon emissions (even if it’s consumed in another country).
Doesn’t Ms Smith think that a strategy that is characterized as ‘low-carbon’ should adequately address this resource in much more detail? I think the strategy would be much stronger if it spoke more comprehensively to this subject, and the other issue I raised on the emission projections of national development, would be fuelled mostly by oil if the strategy succeeds. For example, will the oil producing and consuming sectors of a future Guyana be required to use carbon capture technology to avoid emissions as part of this apparent low-carbon strategy?
This is just one example of how we can address our plans for future oil production and use.
But let’s get beyond some of the technical aspects of the strategy. I’m not as ‘ignorant’ as Ms Smith suggested in her letter. I am familiar with many of the technical details as well as the international and regional negotiations and conferences surrounding climate change. I don’t intend for this to be a forum to tout qualifications and experience, because being an informed Guyanese is sufficient for me.
However, I think that a few of the members of the National Climate Committee are familiar with my work. Therefore, I am not intimidated or easily pacified by use of words such as “international,” “renowned” and “technical experts.” In my view, this most often is used as a clever sales pitch with the notion that anything from abroad is good. But in fact what it does is dehumanize and delegitimize our real local experts and citizens, who have spent all of their lives in Guyana and understand the real issues, only to be told that their viewpoints don’t matter, unless they are in line with the state. But, as I previously mentioned, I know the government welcomes opposing viewpoints.
To address another issue in the letter: I didn’t criticize the strategy for failing to focus on the intellectual development of young people. I expressed concern that as a development strategy it did not include how young people, and by extension, all Guyanese can use their intellect and innovativeness to address problems in the country.
As I said, in simple terms, it appears as a ‘sit back, relax, we’ve got this under control, just trust us’ strategy. I think we differ in our ideology on the engine of development. Ms Smith seems to support the idea that the government is the main driving force for national development (top-down approach), whereas I believe that the Guyanese people, through their pursuit of a better life, will undertake innovative projects that drive national development (bottom-up approach).
They will open small businesses, create corpor-ations, develop new tech-nologies, offer new services and products (on the local and international markets), find cures for diseases, develop new energy sources and much more if they are allowed to express their innovation in a free and secure environment. Any development strategy must be centered on making it easy for us to accomplish these feats and in the process we will become truly independent, depending on our own skills, rather than uncertain foreign payments and the state.
Guyana and the Caribbean have always based their economies on sensitive fragile industries such as agriculture and tourism.
It takes only one outbreak of disease or the repeating cycle of disasters to cripple those industries. However, an economy built on the innovation of people is as strong as the resilience of the people themselves. People are adaptable and can therefore adjust with changing winds, or changing climate for that matter.
Once people remain industrious, motivated, innovative, self-reliant and self-driven, they can change the economy in whatever direction they want. If we base our economy largely on forest payments and do not fundamentally integrate our citizens in the engine of the economy, then what will we do if climate change turns out to be far less threatening than we originally thought, or our partners decide to cease payments?
In any case, if we are really serious about making constructive changes to this current strategy, I suggest and advocate that, instead of all the forest payments going to the Government of Guyana to do as they see fit, we create a permanent fund from which all Guyanese citizens get a forest dividend check in the mail each year – the bigger the payments from the international community, the bigger the check.
Also, let’s write into the strategy the creation of an innovation and technology fund through which citizens can access finances for upgrading the technological level and introducing innovative ideas to Guyanese businesses. My parents would always tell me though, “Don’t make plans with money you don’t have.”
Ms Smith advocates that all Guyanese should support the initiative. I’ve said that we have nothing to lose in this approach. It’s a win-win for Guyana, whether it’s based on a false premise or not. If we get payments, yes, great! If we don’t, our circumstances would not have changed. However, this is not just about supporting the initiative “wholeheartedly.”
It seems that Ms Smith is advocating a culture of conformity and dependency, where the ideal citizen takes on remote-control like qualities in service to the government.
Is she really saying that everyone should be drained of uniqueness and self-worth, and deterred from independent thought or behaviour? This is not democracy; this is not liberty – this is tyranny.
Finally, if the maximum export revenue is US$60M, then how were we going to increase that to a value as close as possible to the US$580M as mentioned in the report? I say we include a specific plan of action that details how we intend to increase the export revenue to that nice big number and then we really have a strategy.
Yours faithfully,
Kofi Dalrymple