Less backbiting needed

Nov 29, 2009 Editorial

One of the most debilitating features of our fractured political landscape has been the insistence that nothing good can come from the “other side”. Thus even if a particular initiative or idea may have positive implications for the benefit of the country at large, there is a seeming compulsion to reflexively oppose and even tear down the proposal. This predilection does not bode well for the development of our country, mired as we have been in poverty for most of our history and only now showing some “green shoots” of progress.
We understand that as a democratic country conducting its politics within the Westminster tradition, there is a need for an institutionalised “opposition”. But in the political model that we imitate, this opposition – in all its manifestations and forms – is not supposed to just criticise just for the sake of criticising – but rather to offer critiques of governmental initiatives and policies. Critiques imply an objective assessment of the subjects at hand – pointing out discerned weaknesses but also strengths – instead of knee-jerk bitter denunciations and questioning of motives.
In the few instances where some opposition figures attempted to buck the trend in the face of overwhelming evidence that a proposed policy did redound to the benefit of the country – such as with the government’s objections to the EPA agreement with the EU – they were quickly slapped back into line through disciplinary measures and accusations of “naivety”.
The latest manifestation of the automatic rush into scorched-earth type condemnation and calumny over a positive initiative for our country is on the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) unveiled by the government earlier this year but which has been in the making for several years. It was with a considerable degree of candour that the President admitted back in 2007 that he had signed the Kyoto Protocol with not much appreciation of the significance. But with the realisation of both the import of unimpeded climate change on our country – the certainty of greater pressures on our coastal sea defences due to rising sea levels, for one – and the mitigating effects of standing forests, it is difficult to understand why the administration, and especially the President, should be condemned for swinging into action.
The EU, for one, has consistently been extending assistance for the rehabilitation of our sea defences and other infrastructure such as conservancies. With the new heightened global awareness of the potentially catastrophic effects on low-lying states, there is no question that massively increased funding will be available to confront the threat. With almost two decades experience of deploying such aid with tangible and measurable results, why should there be carping over the government’s inclusion of such funds within its new development strategy?
And the same goes for the deployment of our forests towards ameliorating carbon dioxide build-up in our atmosphere. This is not a matter quixotically trying to “save the world” as some cynics would have it – but of recognising a business opportunity and seizing it for the benefit of our country.
Even though the reflexive critics have become increasingly gleeful that a new climate change protocol might not be signed in Copenhagen in the next few weeks, it is now clear that even if that is the case, the “cap and trade” mechanism through which Guyana would be able to be compensated for its standing forests, will certainly be a feature – and a prominent feature – of any new agreement. This is the route which both the US and the EU have decided to proceed.
With this in mind, it can only be seen as perverse for some of the naysayers on one hand to claim that Guyana’s development will be stymied because we will not be able to exploit our forests’ resources and at the same time complain that the Government was able to be compensated by Norway, while stating clearly that there will have to be an increase over our historically anaemic rate of deforestation.
This newspaper has consistently supported the LCDS initiative while proposing that its developmental aspects need to be made more robust. But this is as much a responsibility of our business sector as the government.