Perhaps more than it realizes, under the 12th December 2015 United Nations Paris Agreement on Climate Change which, having been ratified by a sufficient number of states, became international law in November 2016, the government of Guyana has taken many positions and made numerous commitments that in my view have severely limited its policy space in the area of climate governance. I believe that as a country we tend to be very laid back about our regional and international obligations, but commitments about the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project made during the process that led to Paris may prove very important.
The introduction to the Paris Agreement states that ‘climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet and thus requires the widest possible cooperation by all countries, and their participation in an effective and appropriate international response, with a view to accelerating the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions.’
It further states that governments have serious concerns about ‘the urgent need to address the significant gap between the aggregate effect of Parties’ mitigation pledges (their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) in terms of global annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020 and aggregate emission pathways consistent with holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.’
Governments also acknowledged ‘the need to promote universal access to sustainable energy in developing countries, … through the enhanced deployment of renewable energy (and agree) to uphold and promote regional and international cooperation in order to mobilize stronger and more ambitious climate action by all Parties and non-Party stakeholders.’
Article 53 of the agreement provides that ‘in the implementation of the Agreement, financial resources provided to developing countries should enhance the implementation of their policies, strategies, regulations and action plans and their climate change actions with respect to both mitigation and adaptation to contribute to the achievement of the purpose of the Agreement as defined in Article 2’.
And Article 2, while welcoming the INDC of each country ‘Notes with concern that the estimated aggregate greenhouse gas emission levels in 2025 and 2030 resulting from the intended nationally determined contributions do not fall within least-cost 2 ̊C scenarios … and also notes that much greater emission reduction efforts will be required than those associated with the intended nationally determined contributions in order to hold the increase in the global average temperature to below 2 ̊C above pre-industrial levels … or to 1.5 ̊C above pre-industrial levels …’
Please note that the governments of Guyana and the Caribbean were in the forefront at the Paris conference, making dire predictions about the possibility of survival of small island and low lying states if the global end-of-century temperature rise was above 1.5C.
Noteworthy also is that the Norconsult report on the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project drew our attention to the fact that ‘A Low Carbon Strategy Document (LCSD), outlining the way forward towards such goal, was sanctioned by the former Government in March 2013. The commitment has been confirmed by the current Government at the United Nations conference on climate change in Paris in December 2015 and in the INDC that GOG submitted to the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2015.’
The LCDS stated that ‘(Amaila Falls) will eliminate at least 92% of Guyana’s energy related greenhouse gas emissions’ and ‘simultaneously, it will enable Guyana to switch from nearly 100% dependence on fossil fuel-based electricity generation to nearly 100% clean, renewable energy supplies’.
The report proceeded to observe that since 2009, Norway’s Ministry of Climate and Environment and its International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI) have supported Guyana’s rainforest conservation efforts and its commitment to the transfer of its oil fired energy generation to renewable sources, as outlined in Guyana’s Low-Carbon Development Strategy. Since 2010 Norway has thus paid about USD150 million to Guyana, USD80 million of which is for a larger part of Guyana’s equity in realising the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project.
I believe that the sections in the Norconsult report dealing with Guyana’s international commitments are intended to be suggestive. Norconsult claims that ‘The only realistic path for Guyana towards an emission free electricity sector is by developing its hydropower potential’ and that Amaila is now its best option. Therefore, given the above mentioned international commitments by both the governments of Guyana and Norway, for the government of Guyana to stymie the project as it appears to want to do, it will have to devise another approach that will be as, if not more, effective, certain and timely. It is very likely that the US$80 million, which by agreement Guyana and Norway tied to the Amaila project, was conceived with this kind of scenario in mind.
The Guyana Government needs to further note that climate litigation is increasing and national and international courts are also becoming more active. Only recently, in a related case that the judge called ‘no ordinary lawsuit,’ an environmental civil rights action group of young people ranging from 8 to 19 in age, an association of youth environmentalists known as Earth’s Guardians and Dr. James Hansen acting as guardian for future generations, filed an action in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon against the United States of America, President Barack Obama, and numerous state agencies.
In dismissing the defendants and their supporters’ (the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, and the American Petroleum Institute) arguments that the case be dismissed, the reviewing judge gave the following ‘wake up call’:
‘The current state of affairs … reveals a wholesale failure of the legal system to protect humanity from the collapse of finite natural resources by the uncontrolled pursuit of short-term profits …. The modern judiciary has enfeebled itself to the point that law enforcement can rarely be accomplished by taking environmental predators to court. , . . The third branch can, and should, take another long and careful look at the barriers to litigation created by modern doctrines of subject-matter jurisdiction and deference to the legislative and administrative branches of government.’
Norway is already in the spotlight and in court for what campaigners say are decisions that violate its constitution and threaten the Paris climate agreement. (https://www.theguardian .com/environment/2016/oct/18/ norway-faces-climate-lawsuit-over-oil-exploration).
Guyana may well have a small carbon footprint, nevertheless, the government should be aware that if it breaches its commitment to improve, not reduce, its international obligations made in the INDC, it will be creating or contributing to an international precedent very detrimental to the very neighbours with whom it stood in Paris. As such, it will be courting national and international political pressure and litigation in relation to its climate obligations and by association the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project.
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com
