Should the global financial meltdown offer a pretext for governments and businesses to scrap and or sideline environmental promises post-Kyoto, President’s Jagdeo’s rallying cry for tropical forest conservation could easily be reduced to a whimper.
Certainly, his recent is legacy is being largely shaped-or rescued as some have argued-by his eco-activism, which thrives on an unrelenting call for stewardship of the environment, especially the tropical forest.
The Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, a year after his presidency ends, but there remains a symbolic coincidence. International agreements to shape an ambitious and effective international response to climate change at Copenhagen later this year with a focus on the protection of standing forests spells victory for the Guyanese head of state and would be a successful addition in the replacement agreement to Kyoto. Equally, failure to reach bigger emission goals and reduction targets as well as the lack of robust commitment to the reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) mechanism translates into global environmental injury post-Kyoto, and a clear setback to Jagdeo’s active crusade.
In 2006, Jagdeo stunned the international community when he offered Guyana’s entire rain forest in the battle against climate change. But he outlined a plan which focused on the creation of market-based incentives in support of the proposal. He reasoned the economics of his idea saying that international donors and investors need to pay for the increasingly tangible benefits of keeping the rain forest intact.
He later unveiled the country’s avoided deforestation position, arguing that the REDD mechanism must back compensatory economic alternatives which, based on calculations, could be worth US$580M per annum.
Jagdeo’s pitch on deforestation was an important one and will probably rank among his more critical contributions to the debate on climate change. Deforestation is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, and it is escalating and accelerating into the remaining areas of undisturbed forest.
Guyana has roughly about 40 million acres of largely untouched rain forest. It is a portion of the remaining standing forests across the globe that is threatened in the face of millions of disappearing hectares annually.
The President has plugged his environmental campaign while emphasizing the need for sustainable development here and across the board. His ideas were not essentially new, but his aggressive and spirited approach certainly was. Indeed, it is in Guyana’s interest that the administration secures a proportionate response to tropical deforestation in light of emerging carbon market as the world’s main mechanism to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Admirers have lauded him as a sound voice of reason on environmental issues and one of the take-charge players on the international scene, particularly as it relates to his advocacy for compensation standing forests and the creation of a market-based mechanism. The article in Times Magazine also counts as due recognition of Jagdeo’s crusade for effective solutions to the current problems facing the environment.
But critics have raised questions about whether preservation of the forest had been on Jagdeo’s agenda prior to the unprecedented interest being paid to the environment, pointing to destructive timber harvesting and mining operations here that had gone unnoticed for sometime.
The questions of whether loggers and miners have been allowed to run amok here without adequate supervision has been put to Jagdeo and he has charged that Guyana has highly sustainable harvesting practices. Still, the issue remains an issue and suggestions have been made that the administration must pay greater attention to what is happening in the territories at risk.
Jagdeo has also been challenged on his perception of what the global economy deems critical. Observers have noted that many countries simply do not value the services that forests provide when trees are kept alive, including the avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions.
But the President persists, and his aim to will global powers into acting in the interest of the environment by protecting standing forests and to an extent the developing world peaked this year with the release of Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS).
He touted the LCDS as Guyana promoting a low carbon economy saying that “we are campaigning for the rest of the world to recognise the need to pay for standing forests as a mitigation measure against climate change.”
The strategy provides the broad framework of Guyana’s response to climate change focusing on investments in low carbon economic infrastructure and in high-potential low-carbon sectors; expanding access to services and new economic opportunities for indigenous and forest communities and transforming the village economy. It also targets improvements in social services and economic opportunities for the wider Guyanese population and investments in climate change adaptation infrastructure.
But while Jagdeo has trumpeted the strategy as the defining framework in Guyana’s contribution to the climate change debate at Copenhagen later this year questions have been raised about its proposed development path.
Observers have pointed to its formula being purely simplistic in that it projects the idea of compensation for standing forests translating into development. But the more critical questions have pointed to how the ordinary man will benefit from the monetary proceeds of the proposal.
Jagdeo has stated that protecting the environment cuts to the core of the nation’s development and it is on this premise that he trumpets the LCDS, and he has pointed to proceeds being used prudently while pointing to the need for better schools and hospitals, more jobs and economic opportunities, and also to meet all the other economic and social demands of Guyana’s people.
Still, observers have noted that the LCDS is not people-centred and that it ignores the value of citizens except for those in government- one writer said that it is likely to enlarge the role of government.
There have been a string of questions as it relates to the funds and whether proceeds will translate into more effective government policies including whether reduce the Valued Added Tax and introduce a more reasonable income tax etc.
And even as the LCDS consultations continue across the country there are concerns about whether Jagdeo will likely end his much touted crusade and green-light further exploitation of the country’s forests given that poor countries such as Guyana often find it more valuable to cut forests down than to leave them standing.