In direct response to a letter, ‘The majority of articles have recognized Guyana’s pioneering work in forging climate change,’ (SN, January 1), written by Mr Robert Persaud, Agriculture Minister with responsibility for Forestry, let me say he has not persuaded me, even if he has persuaded others, that Guyana’s climate change crusade has anything to do with preserving Guyana’s largely virgin forests as much as it has to do with his President trying to get his hands on big and easy money. I said it before and I will say it again: almost everybody else appeared consumed with cutting carbon emissions; the President was definitely consumed with getting money. There are two different sets of focuses here.
I am going to now challenge Mr Persaud and all his associates to tell the people of Guyana what the Jagdeo administration has done in the last ten years to preserve Guyana’s forests or what it has literally done to help the world reduce carbon footprints or greenhouse gases. Other than President Bharrat Jagdeo running all over the place chatting up a storm about the importance of slowing climate change, all the while keeping his eye on money from rich nations, I have not read of anything his administration has done to literally slow climate change in Guyana and the world. Talk is always cheap!
The Low Carbon Development Strategy is just that, a strategy, not a completed project. We don’t even know how or if LCDS will work and whether it will actually yield desired results, and that is why it is a gamble. It has no precedent. Worse, the amount of money the administration originally touted as likely coming its way – US$580M – won’t happen, so that makes it a definite gamble Guyana won’t be winning any time soon. And because LCDS became the core of the President’s economic agenda to wean Guyana’s economy off of foreign loans, and grants, foreign remittances and money laundering, it was the equivalent of putting all his eggs in one basket. Those crushing sounds you hear are the eggs in the President’s basket!
I also want to challenge Mr Persaud and all his associates to tell Guyanese what are the major elements of the final draft of the LCDS. The President did promise he would release the final draft before heading off to Copenhagen, but he never did, and although he has since returned, Guyanese still don’t know what the final draft looks like. Why didn’t Mr Persaud see it fit to address this anomaly? Make the final draft available to the media at some office in OP or put it up on a website so Guyanese at home and abroad can see what the administration has been making so much noise about.
Regarding the much talked about MOU signed between Guyana and Norway, which the Jagdeo administration is using as its signature achievement in getting its hands on easy and big money, I want to ask Mr Persaud if he really thinks Guyanese are stupid to believe that Norway is going to pony up US$250M for Guyana to sit and watch its forests grow? Norway has set forth some stringent conditions for Guyana to abide by in order to get that money; the money is not guaranteed to reach Guyana at a particular month ever year. This means Norway will have people in Guyana monitoring Guyana, with money being denied if Guyana fails to conform to the conditions. Norway, my fellow Guyanese, not Guyana, will be calling the shots in Guyana! Think!
By the way, last year, the World Bank set aside US$1B for Brazil to help preserve its rain forests. On October 26, 2009, SN reported that Japan, the world’s fifth-largest air polluter, pledged 4 billion yen in a climate change loan to Indonesia, the world’s third-largest air polluter. What is all the noise about a paltry US$250M for Guyana over five years? Guyana is not an air polluter, and we’d be very lucky to get huge sums to preserve our forests. We really need a Plan B for our economy or a Plan B set of leaders.
As an aside, it really does not make sense to me that Guyana will allow Norway so much leeway for US$250M, yet when the British came with their money at the request of the President to help reform Guyana’s security sector, the Jagdeo administration last year said it will not compromise Guyana’s sovereignty supposedly because the British wanted to use live ammunition as part of training exercises in parts of our hinterland. We have since learned from other sources that the British did engage in the exercises minus the use of live ammunition, and that the real gripe government had was related to the British wanting to station its personnel among our police officers as part of the reform exercise. If you ask me, the sovereignty issue exists in the Norway deal, but it now seems convenient for the government to ignore it.
Before I close, I would like to draw Mr Persaud’s attention to a Stabroek News article, ‘Guyana confident of tapping climate funds,’ (December 19, 2009), in which it was implied that following the Copenhagen summit, the United Nations funding will go primarily to Least Developed Countries. This is what SN wrote to identify LDCs: “According to the United Nations Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and the Small Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLS) there are 49 countries which fall under this category. Haiti is the only country in the Caribbean and Latin American region which has been so categorized. The other 48 countries consist of 33 countries from Africa and 15 from Asia.”
Where is the mention of Guyana as an LDC, thus making it eligible for climate change funding? According to an SN December 25 article, ‘Jagdeo upbeat about climate $$,’ the “USA and other major countries also pledged at Copenhagen to mobilize US$100B per annum to help least developed countries counteract the impact of climate change.” But the President tried to put a spin on that by saying “the funds were not for the LDCs alone but the most vulnerable countries and Guyana ranks high on the vulnerability index.” My question is: Does his definition of vulnerable coincide with the UN’s definition of least developed countries?
We would like to believe our leaders, but their track record does not inspire confidence, and so the nagging question among Guyanese at home and abroad relates to Guyana’s eligibility. We really need to hear from a UN source and not just our leaders at this juncture. Apart from the President’s attempt at sounding upbeat, here are two other responses (extracted from the same December 19 article), which also do not have the needed element of confidence: 1) “Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh told Stabroek News yesterday [December 18] that Guyana is still eligible for funding and that the nation could ‘still qualify’. According to the minister, determination of the ‘least developed territories is based on different criteria’ and that Guyana could benefit depending on which criteria [are] used.” Note the words “could still qualify” and “could benefit depending on which criteria [are] used.” Then, number 2. “Meanwhile, Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud, one of the lead players in the country’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) indicated that he was optimistic that Guyana would qualify and said there was a thin line in the categorization. ‘Guyana is looking seriously at the funds,’ he stressed.”
Mr Persaud said he is optimistic Guyana would qualify. That’s his personal opinion, and his opinion is based on what? How dare he tell us, concerned Guyanese, that our opinions about LCDS and his President’s climate change agenda are baseless when he is basing his opinion on a wing and a prayer with the hope LCDS will eventually fly? For the sake of Guyana and Guyanese, no one wants LCDS to fail, but it is the arrogance of the people running the country to think they have all the solutions and answers, that makes so many of us openly challenge the political cabal playing hopscotch with the economy as if it is their plaything.
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
