The opposition APNU+AFC yesterday blasted Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo for not entering meaningful discussions with it on Guyana’s platform for the COP26 climate meeting later this month and for stating that the previous country position of 100% green energy by 2025 would be cut in half.
In a statement yesterday, APNU+AFC pointed to an exclusive interview Jagdeo gave to this newspaper and which was reported in the last Sunday Stabroek.
Jagdeo had said that the APNU+AFC commitment while in office for 100% green energy by 2025 was “wild and unrealistic” and that Guyana would likely move to a position of 50% of green energy by 2025 at the COP26 summit in Scotland from October 31 to November 12.
APNU+AFC lashed back at Jagdeo by attacking him yesterday at a stakeholder consultation on Guyana’s Nationally Deter-mined Contributions (NDCs) at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC) at Liliendaal. The opposition coalition later issued its statement to the public.
Citing Jagdeo’s forewarning in the Sunday Stabroek interview of what it said was his unconsulted plan to halve Guyana’s NDCs, APNU+AFC charged that Jagdeo has “already set Guyana on a new but retrograde heavy-industry and heavy-pollution-led development strategy, concentrated in the hands of a select few, and is now intent on gas-lighting the national and international community to underwrite and subsidize it”.
The APNU+AFC press release issued in the name of MPs Tabitha Sarabo-Halley and Amanza Walton Desir, said the country was being presented with a fait accompli.
“We are being told that we have ceded our decision-making responsibilities into the hands of one person, the Vice President. The vision touted by the Vice President — a new heavy-industry and heavy-pollution-led development strategy, and the nation’s wealth privatized in the control of a few select businesses – will set Guyana on a downward spiral that cannot be easily reversed or corrected. It will accelerate the degradation of all natural resources…, adding degraded marine resources to the degraded forest and mineral resources, and all for narrow private gain. It will impoverish the present and future generations who will have to live with the dire consequences.
“We urge all Guyanese to join us in saying – No. Say your ‘No’ in petitions, on social media, on the radio, in telephone calls to your Parliamentarians, religious leaders and your community leaders. Just say ‘No, not in my name, not in the name of my children and their children’s children’ no”, APNU+AFC declared.
The statement said that numerous United Nations decisions have affirmed citizens’ rights, not least the rights of women to meaningful participation in crafting national development, energy and all other strategies concerning the management of natural resources.
It said that meaningful participation is now firmly established in norm and law and requires public disclosure of how Governments have weighed different perspectives in their final decisions. Meaningful and effective participation also requires participating in monitoring and evaluation of the outcomes of decisions, it said.
The statement charged that government is going to the upcoming 26th Conference of the Parties (COP) of UNFCCC, having excluded the public, especially women from any form of participation in what they propose to present as Guyana’s position.
“We note that there has been no effort to include the views of our indigenous brothers and sisters and local communities.
“This gathering here today (at ACCC) does not meet even the minimum standards of participation, not even a draft document has been circulated for consideration.
“This is in stark contrast to what obtained in the development of our NDC in 2015, a process which was led by civil society and benefitted from wide input and which took into account the Low Carbon Deve-lopment Strategy”, the APNU+AFC statement contended.
Backward leap
It charged that while there has been a “hand in glove relationship with foreign multinational companies and a select few of Guyana’s private sector”, there has been a complete lack of nationally based, open consultations with citizens on the swift change in Guyana’s energy policy. APNU+AFC said that this change is nothing but a “backward leap to heavy-industries and heavy-pollution led development”.
It said that the Paris 2015 commitments made by the APNU+AFC government must be the basis in form and content, for formulating the current position on energy and Climate Change and any revision of those commitments can only be done through the effective and meaningful participation of all Guyanese.
Having deliberately avoided any form of debate in Parliament on these issues, the APNU+AFC statement said that the Office of the President through the Department of Energy and Climate Change, dispatched an invitation on October 7 at 11:50 am to the Office of the Opposition Leader, inviting the Parliamentary Opposition to yesterday’s consultation workshop at ACCC to discuss the revision of the Nationally Determined Contributions to the UNFCCC.
APNU+AFC said that when an inquiry was made via telephone on Friday 8th October for the relevant documentation, it was informed that none was available. It said that it was only at 10:09 am yesterday morning that some correspondence comprising the agenda and a power-point presentation was transmitted to it via email.
“With an invitation just before the weekend, leaving the Opposition and no doubt others, one working day to even query what is happening, we can only conclude that the purpose of this session is to tick a box for Glasgow.
“Clearly, this meeting here today is supposed to make it appear that the energy and climate position Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has been peddling and which will be offered as a national position, is one which was derived through genuine processes. This is not true! And it cannot be, until and unless the Guyanese people participate fully”, APNU+AFC declared.
It added that yesterday’s event was the only one that was organized to solicit the views of Guyanese on how to address climate change at the national and global levels, just a mere twenty days before the upcoming 26th Conference of the Parties.
It is unclear how many stakeholders were invited by the government to yesterday’s meeting.
APNU+AFC contended: “We are at a critical juncture, where the global community is confronting the ravages of climate change, dire warnings of its exponential nature, and the COVID-19 pandemic. It is therefore imperative that we a low-lying coastal State not only be ambitious but we must be mindful of our own national vulnerabilities and our global commitments”.
APNU+AFC said that the position to maximize hydrocarbon use until 2050 that Vice President Jagdeo has been promoting here and abroad is “not only reckless, but lacks authority as it is not founded on any process that respects or adheres to the Constitution of Guyana, not least Article 13.
We therefore take this opportunity to inform the people of Guyana, our sister Caribbean countries, and the United Nations system as a whole that Mr. Jagdeo’s policy has no moral or procedural credibility nor has it been raised in, much less endorsed by the Parliament of Guyana.
“More so, it is illegal, as our laws require the Government to consult with the public on a shift in any policy of this magnitude. Enshrined in our constitution is not only the right of the citizen, but also the duty of the government to protect our natural environment and human health”.
APNU+AFC added: “We reject this sham of a consultation and call for a fair, open and equitable process that permits the genuine participation of all Guyanese.
“Finally, we demand that Mr. Jagdeo cease and desist from representing his own views and plans for our country’s energy and climate change future as being that of the Guyanese people. Lest we forget there is only one seat between the opposition as a whole and the current government. By no stretch of imagination does this provide a mandate for the current unilateral positions of the Government”.
