Guyana to take hefty chunk in new agreement

May 27, 2010 News

By Leonard Gildarie

Guyana stands to benefit from a hefty US$4B climate change fund that has been pledged by Germany and a number of donor countries.
President Bharrat Jagdeo and British heir, Prince Charles, are all expected to attend the climate conference set to begin today in Oslo, Norway, where the agreement, a significant one for Guyana, will be signed.
The money includes $3.5 billion that was already promised at the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December. Germany and other donors have since added another US$500M.
On Monday, President Jagdeo, during the launching of a revised Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) at the Umana Yana, announced the agreement, which is a major one for poorer countries hoping that its standing forests can receive money for remaining intact.
Norway’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, in a statement yesterday of the conference, disclosed that initially, $3.5 billion was already promised at the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December.
“Because Germany announces increased contributions, we will (now) have around $4 billion,” Stoltenberg said.
“We are going to sign a partnership tomorrow (today) which is a framework for better coordination, improved efforts on the international level to reduce deforestation.”
Because forests absorb carbon dioxide, clearing the accounts for about 17 percent of the world’s annual emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Keeping the trees in place and limiting the burning of rainforest is an important part of the effort to curtail global warming, the UN says.
“The partnership is important because reducing deforestation is the way we can achieve the biggest, the fastest and the cheapest emission reductions,” Stoltenberg said.
The agreement today will provide a common measuring system and establish a common database where financial flows and mitigation efforts will be monitored, he said.
Jens Riese, head of sustainable economic development at the consultant McKinsey & Co., who advises the governments of Guyana, Papua New Guinea and Congo on forestry, said in a May 21 interview, that global funding must rise to between US$20 billion and US$30 billion a year to halve net deforestation by 2020 and stop it by 2030.
McKinsey also advises Indonesia and Brazil.
Participants of the conference will include the presidents of Gabon, Indonesia, Congo as well as the prime ministers of Denmark, Kenya, Papua New Guinea and Norway.
Late last year, Norway signed an historic agreement with Guyana that will provide up to US$250 million to this country to assist in avoiding emissions from deforestation.
Under the terms of the agreement, signed today, Norway will put $30 million into Guyana’s “REDD+” development fund. Subsequent payments — up to $250 million in total — would be contingent of Guyana’s ability to avoid future deforestation.
Guyana’s deforestation is presently negligible, but the country has argued that proposed development projects could lead to an increase in logging and conversion for large-scale agriculture and plantations. It says the development fund will be used for sustainable development projects and climate change adaptation measures.
Norway has pledged more than 3 billion krone ($530 million) a year to saving forests. It has already committed more than US$1.4B dollars to rainforest conservation in tropical countries over the past two years, including up to a billion dollars to Brazil’s Amazon Fund, $73 million towards the development and implementation of a national REDD strategy in Tanzania over the next five years, and more than $100 million to Congo Basin countries.
On Monday, President Jagdeo announced that Guyana would be plugging almost US$111M of LCDS funds into the economy to finance the Amaila Falls hydro project and several other initiatives, among others.
Within the next two years, eight areas, including the development of an internationally recognized bio-diversity center, a fibre optic cable from Brazil and titling of Amerindian lands, will be targeted from climate change funds.
Speaking to a gathering of diplomats, stakeholders and Cabinet members, Jagdeo announced that LCDS has now taken a new dimension with the consultation period over and an implementation mode now in gear.

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