Guyana is continuing the drive to have the reduction of emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) in developing countries, including Plus (avoided deforestation and sustainable forest management) incorporated into a new Copenhagen agreement in December.
It is also seeking to have a new financial architecture for REDD which comprises both fund-based and market-based financial mechanisms for REDD and Plus, according to a news release from the Office of Climate Change (OCC) in Georgetown.
Guyana was represented by Adviser to the President Andrew Bishop at the latest climate change talks in Bonn, Germany, from August 10 to 14. Like at similar meetings held by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) earlier this year and last year, the country made several interventions on (REDD) and financing matters.
Other key issues which Guyana represented were the phased approach to REDD, where the early (readiness) phase will be financed by grant funds mainly and the later phase (full participation on the emissions treading schemes) will be financed by market-based payments, and the generation of financial flows through cap and trade financial arrangements and the auctioning of allowable emissions units.
According to the OCC, Guyana is advancing on all fronts domestically and overseas with its draft Low Car-bon Development Strategy (LCDS) ahead of the United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark in December.
Bishop said that within the mitigation discussions, Guyana also advocated for forward-looking reference emissions baselines, rather than pure historical emissions reference levels, recognizing that Guyana is among a group of highly forested countries with low deforestation rates, and that a reference level based solely on historical rates would be punitive to this country.
Guyana also called for the separation of mitigation actions by developed countries to be discussed and negotiated separate from mitigation actions by developing countries.
Bishop noted too that Guyana has worked with the AOSIS (Alliance of Small Island States) group of countries in Adaptation in calling for “incentivizing adaptation and creating enabling environments to build climate resilience in the areas of risk assessment, reduction and management, disaster management strategy and actions, insurance-related mechanisms, and economic diversification.” Guyana is also urging support for vulnerable countries to formulate adaptation strategies, plans and activities and quantify the cost of adaptation; and the scaling up of new, additional and predictable financial resources for adaptation.
Technology plan
Meanwhile, in technology transfer, Guyana has been calling for a long-term technology action plan, which must include specific policies, actions, and funding requirements for technologies in the public domain, patented technologies and technologies to be developed in the future.
Guyana is also calling for financial resources for research, development, manufacture, commercialization and diffusion of appropriate technologies for adaptation and mitigation; and the establishment of regional technology centres and networks, and the enhancement of existing ones or a combination of both. While the world is dealing with the impacts of a global financial crisis and recession, the release noted, Guyana has been “moving ahead with initiatives in its own small way and is not waiting for handouts.”
In the meantime, the government has gone ahead, prepared an LCDS and financed a countrywide consultation process, while the administration has maintained that it will continue to forge ahead within the scope of its limited resources even if it does not get the amount of financing anticipated, the release added.
And contrary to critics featured in the letters sections of newspaper and some blogs, the release stated, Guyana is making its position known to the United States and many other countries whenever it participates in international fora and in bilateral meetings with governments.
At the FCPF (World Bank’s Forest Carbon Part-nership Facility) Participants’ Committee (PC) meeting from June 16-18, 2009 in Montreux, Switzerland, the PC cleared the proposals for Guyana, Panama and Indonesia for funding under the Readiness phase (i.e. total grant of US$3.6M), subject to compliance with safeguards and other bank due diligence.
The FCPF was launched at the 13th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Frame-work Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bali, and became operational in June 2008.
As of April 2009, 37 countries from Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America are participating in the FCPF, and 13 donors or contributors from both the public and private sectors are supporting the FCPF financially.
It is important to note, the release concluded, that solutions to climate change do not depend on a single country but require a global effort, with the developed countries in the forefront.
