With global temperatures continuing to rise at an unprecedented pace, President Irfaan Ali on Tuesday told a United Nations climate summit that Guyana intends to reduce its carbon emissions by 70 per cent over the next nine years.
“My country, Guyana, is already playing its part in addressing climate change and will continue to do so. We will maintain our forests, which is almost the size of England and Scot-land combined, storing 20 gigatonnes of carbon as a global asset. We will work with local communities on conserving, protecting and sustainably managing our forests, biodiversity and freshwater supplies. We will decouple economic growth and emissions through a progressively cleaner energy mix with the aim of reducing our carbon emissions by 70 per cent by 2030,” Ali said during his national address on the second day of the COP26 summit in Glasgow.
The two-week summit is being hosted with the intention of seeing countries recommitting to actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in keeping with the Paris Agreement, which aims to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees.
Guyana’s carbon emission reduction announcement can be seen as a reduction from the previous pledge of cutting emissions by 100 per cent by 2025. However, the government has not gone to the crucial conference with a Nationally Determined Contribution, which sets out climate related targets for greenhouse gases emissions reductions, policies and measures. The President’s statement at this point is, therefore, just an oral commitment in the wake of major announcements by other countries.
Former President David Granger had committed to getting Guyana to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2025 when he signed the Paris Agreement in 2016 in New York. However, the Ali administration has been arguing that the plan was unrealistic since there have been no renewable energy projects in the pipeline during Granger’s tenure, which ended last year.
On Friday, Ali told a press conference that Guyana will have to outline a realistic and achievable emission reduction ambition in keeping with its Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS).
“It is very important that we outlined a realistic and achievable ambition target. We cannot go and criticise countries that are not sticking to their commitment and then we make targets that cannot be achieved. We have to communicate targets that are achievable and realistic and that is what we’ll be doing and these targets and ambition will be in keeping with our energy strategy and programming,” he had said.
Ali yesterday told world leaders that Guyana would have to invest in low carbon opportunities for jobs that would realise benefits for ecosystems. He outlined that much of Guy-ana’s environment protection strategy is centred on the expanded LCDS.
“We are at a historic moment in our civilisation. History must not judge us as having only counted our losses. It must instead herald our effort to confront one of our planet’s greatest threats, climate change… the fate of civilization resides in the decisions we make here in Glasgow. The climate issue/crisis has given us an ultimatum — either we take immediate and drastic action or subject ourselves to an infernal global disaster,” he said.
Calling for decisive action, Ali said that indifference and inaction will be costly to future generations, highlighting the fact that the world is far behind in limiting the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. He added that the coming decade, therefore, must be the decade of decisive action.
“Climate change affects us all — rich, poor, developed and developing states — but its effects are more severe on the poorest and most vulnerable, especially small island developing states and low lying coastal states. For us, it is a question of survival. We can use this summit to change the present trajectory,” he highlighted.
The Guyanese President told world leaders that immediate action is needed on three fronts. He called on them to set more ambitious goals to reduce emissions and stick to those commitments. Outlining the second area of decisive action, Ali said that the pledge of US$100 billion per annum to support climate action, made one decade ago, must be met.
“Third, forests constitute a powerful arsenal in the fight against climate change. Forest risk countries must be provided with the incentives necessary to keep their forests intact and to reduce deforestation and forest degradation. Mindful that deforestation contributes 16% to annual global emissions and in recognition of the ecosystem and climate services provided by forests, it is imperative that we finalise the rules for carbon markets and REDD+ so as to properly value tropical forests and climate services which they provide,” he related.
Just last week, President Ali unveiled an expanded version of the LCDS that proposes Guyana meeting its global commitments while earning payments for its ecological role, even as the country maximises returns from its newfound oil and gas industry.
The LCDS 2030 sets out an updated vision for how government intends to drive the transformation of the country, highlighting the finances that can be accrued for its under 1 per cent deforestation.
Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forest and Land Use
Ali yesterday said that Guyana is prepared to work with the international community for collective action, before adding that it fully supports the position of CARICOM, aligned with the Alliance for Small Island States, the Community of Latin America and Caribbean States, the Letitia Pact, the DHAKA-Glasgow Declaration and the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forest and Land Use, among others.
Guyana is one of the 105 countries that signed on to Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use. As COP26 progresses, more countries are signing on to the declaration, which aims at reversing forest loss and land degradation by 2030 while delivering sustainable development and promoting an inclusive rural transformation.
According to COP26’s website, by signing the declaration, the nations are committing to conserve forests and other terrestrial ecosystems and accelerate their restoration; facilitate trade and development policies, internationally and domestically, that promote sustainable development, and sustainable commodity production and consumption, that do not drive deforestation and land degradation; reduce vulnerability, build resilience and enhance rural livelihoods, including through empowering communities, the development of profitable, sustainable agriculture, and recognition of the multiple values of forests, while recognising the rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as local communities, in accordance with relevant national legislation and international instruments, as appropriate; implement and, if necessary, redesign agricultural policies and programmes to incentivise sustainable agriculture, promote food security, and benefit the environment; reaffirm international financial commitments and significantly increase finance and investment from a wide variety of public and private sources, while also improving its effectiveness and accessibility, to enable sustainable agriculture, sustainable forest management, forest conservation and restoration, and support for Indigenous Peoples and local communities; and facilitate the alignment of financial flows with international goals to reverse forest loss and degradation, while ensuring robust policies and systems are in place to accelerate the transition to an economy that is resilient and advances forest, sustainable land use, biodiversity and climate goals.
New oil-producing nation
Guyana may be facing some extra scrutiny as it presents further environmental plans and sets targets on the world stage since it is now among the newest oil-producing nation. However, President Ali is seeming not bothered about the questions that may arise.
He told the world summit that though Guyana recently became an oil-producing nation, it supports the removal of subsidies from fossil fuel production and advocates for a strong global carbon price.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) had warned that if the world is to maintain its goal of meeting net-zero emissions by 2050 then it must stop exploration and development of new oil and gas fields. However, Guyana is forging ahead with full developmental plans for its oil and gas sector.
In a recent interview with Stabroek News, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, who piloted the initial LCDS in 2009 and is one of the current government’s foremost environmental experts, had said that government stands ready to defend its oil developments to COP26.
He had related that Guyana is already a carbon sink owing to its vast forests and that Guyana is already where the world is aiming to be in 2050.
“We’re trapped in that sort of cycle, so our argument is nuanced, once you need it, we should be supplying it but we support the world moving to a decarbonised future. If you can end fossil fuel demand, we support a carbon tax. If you can end it 10 years, then fine, but if you need it for another 10 or 20 years, then let us be part of the supply chain,” he had said.
He went on to emphasise that Guyana is only contributing to a tiny portion of global emissions with its fossil fuel industry but this is not even an issue because Guyana is a carbon sink. According to Jagdeo, this would continue to be the case even if ExxonMobil was producing at its maximum capacity in Guyana.
