Former President Bharrat Jagdeo says he is now happy with the pace at which the arrangements for Guyana to access the Norway funds are progressing, noting that the parties have been able to address and resolve most of the outstanding issues blocking the path to the financing of a range of low carbon projects.
He was speaking with Stabroek News at the World Conservation Congress 2012 in Jeju, South Korea, following one of the daily ‘meet the press’ events, which give the opportunity for especially foreign members of the media to speak with officials.
But while he expressed his appreciation for movement on this front, he still challenged the developed world to keep the commitments to developing countries made at the Conference of the Parties meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2009, saying that the momentum has died off. He expressed the hope that the conservation momentum seen at the Rio+ 20 meeting some weeks ago and at the WCC in Jeju will resuscitate the interest in saving the planet from certain doom, which the latest rounds of agreements are guaranteeing.
Jagdeo in past months had been vocal in his criticism of the rigorous measures and the slothful pace at which the funds from the Norway agreement were being handled. He is known to have said many times that climate mitigation and adaptation funding should not be treated in the same way as overseas development aid. It had however been pointed out that Guyana had not complied with many of the conditions precedent to disbursal. US$250M is potentially available over five years and while US$70M has been allocated by Norway for the first two years only around $3M has been disbursed for projects here. The World Bank is managing the fund.
“It is moving. I am very pleased with the pace that it is moving at now. It has picked up significantly. I think we have been able to resolve most of the issues, Jagdeo told Stabroek News.
“I understand that (former Norway Environment Minister) Erik Solheim is here so if I meet him I [will speak on this] later,” he said. Jagdeo and Solheim are the two main protagonists in the saga of the Norway funds.
`Top notch’
Speaking of Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) during the ‘meet the press’ session, the former President explained that Guyana worked with a “top notch” consultancy in McKinsey and Company to place a value of the forest. He said that Guyana has the largest per capita arrangement for the sale of forest carbon in the agreements between Norway and several other countries.
“We have received so far US$70 million (but not disbursed) for the first two years. We are using this money to catalyse a series of low carbon investments”, he said.
Jagdeo, when asked about what the conversation should be at the Jeju congress with regards to the issues facing the planet, said, “I think the parameters are set for us. So it is the perspective of the different panelists as to whether nature can become the solution and I suspect people will have varying answers.”
“Beyond their initial answers – yes or no –hopefully they will be able to explain why and we would be able to explore some practical initiatives. So in a generic way without getting into the debate itself that is what I expect to happen,” he said.
Asked how he felt being among the first to participate in the first ever world leaders’ dialogue at a World Conservation Congress, he said that this is indicative “of the times that we live in.”
Said Jagdeo, “At no time in the past has our planet been under threat as it is now from anthropogenic action and so I think the dialogue here reflects that urgency and the danger to our planet and the search for solutions outside the traditional, which has not worked.”
Asked whether he has more confidence in the conservation movement than the efforts of the climate change negotiations at the level of the United Nations he said that compartmentalizing the issue might not be the best thing to do. He stressed however that climate change and conservation are linked.
“Yes I was disappointed with Copenhagen. We had an agreement there that was way below optimal…an agreement that if pursued, would lead to a five degree rise in temperature, when the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change said you need a change of not more than two degrees rise in temperature to avoid catastrophic climate change. So the agreement if pursued would lead to catastrophic climate change and that is what we agreed to in Copenhagen,” he said.
He said that the US$10 billion per annum pledged to the developing world at Copenhagen “never really materialized so that is why we have a breakdown in trust and this reflected itself in a weak Rio agreement because of that breakdown in trust between the developed and developing world.”
He expressed the hope that the conservation movement could restore the momentum that existed before the 2009 Copenhagen conference.
“This Congress can put the urgency and the real dangers that we face back on the agenda because so far it has been about lack of trust between developed and developing countries,” he said.
Asked what prevents 2010 to 2020 from becoming a lost decade in the fight against climate change, Jagdeo said that there have been two meetings in the wake of Copenhagen – Cancun and Durban in 2010 and 2011 respectively. “They have been very incremental about the solutions when we need radical solutions. So clearly this is a big challenge for the global community
because the developed world has not agreed to what the IPCC has dictated as a sustainable trajectory,” Jagdeo said.
“If we are to avoid catastrophic climate change we have to convince them that not only is this difficult for our planet but also that it will be significantly more costly in the future if we don’t fix it now,” he said.
“We have to demonstrate that for relatively small sums of money we can make a big difference, particularly in the area of forestry,” he said.
“This congress can help to restate the case of the urgency…what we need now are strong educated advocates to restore the momentum. Outside of that we have deferred the tough decisions for another ten years,” he said.
Jagdeo added that the efforts must embrace business and the private sector and said that it cannot be left to Governments and the conservationists alone.
