Dear Editor,
We, The Office of Climate Change, Office of the President, have taken notice of several letters on Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) in the letters column of Stabroek News. We welcome this level of interest and these comments in the main, but would like to offer a response on a number of errors of fact. We have chosen to address points that were raised in the letters by Mr Sasenarine Singh on July 30, 2009, and Ms Janette Bulkan, July 31, 2009, respectively.
Mr Singh needs to check the accuracy of the information he presents. For example, Guyana has approximately 13.8 million hectares of forests under state forest and approximately 2.1 million hectares as Amerindian titled lands, bringing this to a total of approximately 15.9 million hectares of forested land. Mr Singh then makes the point about the UN only having a budget of around US$3B and this would not be able to provide the funds needed to compensate countries that have espoused avoided deforestation in the context of pursuing low carbon development. Mr Singh clearly has not understood what the LCDS is proposing and also what is being put forward in terms of the evolution of the carbon market and its inclusion of forest carbon. Mr Singh indicates that Guyana is too exposed to the imminent Copenhagen agreement. In this regard, we wish to note the following:
An adaptation fund has been approved in 2009, and other fund mechanisms are in the negotiating text on the table.
There is a carbon market which all agree will grow as the pressure for Annex 1 countries to mitigate grows.
Fund and market sources of revenue flows for REDD, sustainable forest management and standing forest are already in the negotiating text that is headed for COP 15 in December.
Many of the most powerful countries of the world have pledged support for REDD outside of the Copenhagen Agreement. This was clearly manifested in the G8 summit declaration which included a statement on the need to include forest conservation in a future climate agreement. It states, inter alia, “…support the development of positive incentives in particular for developing countries to promote emission reductions through actions to reduce deforestation and forest degradation…”
It is apposite, therefore, to note that while initially a fund approach could be the source of financial flows, the medium to long term objective, starting with a successor agreement to the present Kyoto Protocol, is to have a carbon market which includes forest carbon, and over time, this market can expand to include ecosystem services.
Mr Singh has recognised the leadership President Jagdeo has been taking on the issue of forests nationally and internationally and we want to assure him that Guyana is also working closely with other international partners and countries, including developed countries and countries with forests, to address the existing anomaly of the exclusion of forestry in the carbon markets at the UNFCCC Copenhagen Meeting.
Mr Singh’s notion of the “high risk” nature of the LCDS is his opinion which he is free to express. The fact is, the Government of Guyana’s intentions and those efforts of other Guyanese who are engaged in the process of the LCDS should not simply be discredited. There are many who welcome this strategy as a timely and worthy attempt to garner financial resources for the development of this country while reducing the prospects of a more resource depleting path and are entitled to their opinions of optimism too. Again, we wish to posit that Mr Singh considers garnering a better understanding of what Guyana is trying to do through the LCDS and how the international process is evolving so as to get a better picture of what Guyana, and other countries are working so hard to get as outcomes of the Copenhagen meeting.
Ms Bulkan has raised a number of issues on the LCDS consultation and awareness process and the ensuing reports as posted on the LCDS website. We would like to thank Ms Bulkan for her regular visits to the LCDS website which is being updated continuously with the reports from the consultations and awareness sessions. These reports are comprehensive and include the questions, comments and suggestions from participants and the responses from the consultations teams. A check of each of the reports would verify this fact. She refers to not enough details being given to the budgets and data identified in pages 20-29. Interestingly though, she concurs that the team comprising specialists from the McKinsey Group and the Government of Guyana did not ‘dream up’ these figures which were the result of months of research, data gathering, and expert inputs from local and international expertise.
Ms Bulkan also questions Guyana’s representation and participation at international climate change meetings. Ms Bulkan unfortunately is not privy to all the discussion spaces within the various negotiating points in the UN and elsewhere when the international community engages in the issues of climate change and therefore some of her statements lack that advantage. She has suggested, even accused us, of failing to do our work at that level. We would wish to assure your readership that Guyana is an active participant in these discussions at the technical level in the UNFCCC negotiations, and works closely with the Coalition for Rainforest Nations in and out of the UNFCCC meetings. Furthermore the Caricom states, at the highest level, have committed to joining our advocacy as demonstrated in the recent meeting of heads of government. The Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) does not do verbatim reporting but highlights and discusses points that are pertinent to their understanding of events. What Ms Bulkan may not realize is that the reporting bulletins do not report on every single intervention made in plenary. Furthermore, these do not report the full content of technical discussions at the break out working group level, where many agreements are struck for plenary adoption.
While we recognize the scholarship of these letter writers, we regret that apart from their pessimistic view of the draft LCDS, they have not submitted to us any idea and suggestion for the purpose of improving the strategy.
We encourage constructive discussion on the LCDS and we urge that all queries, views, advice and any other input on the LCDS be made through our web site www.lcds.gov.gy or by contacting me at the Office of Climate Change.
Yours faithfully,
Michael E. Brotherson