Harmonised approaches to environmental challenges needed - CARICOM

Harmonised approaches to environmental challenges needed – CARICOM

Sep 02, 2011 News

The Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) Ministers meeting continued yesterday with a follow-up confab at the Headquarters of the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) Secretariat, Pattensen, to discuss the United Nations Cancun Climate Change Conference and a Plan of Action for the Implementation of the Climate Change Regional Strategic Framework, among other critical environmental issues.
Representing Guyana was Prime Minister Samuel Hinds.

CARICOM Secretary General Ambassador Irwin LaRocque (Second from left) and other dignitaries at the forum.

COTED Ministers began their meeting on Thursday to discuss preparations for United Nations (UN) high-level environmental negotiations and to deliberate on a slate of issues on the Community environment and sustainable development agenda.
These include the environmental dimension pertaining to the implementation of the CSME; sustainable land management; renewable energy; and matters related to the Caribbean Sea Initiative.
Prime Minister Hinds said that the critical importance of the environment and sustainable development had not escaped the attention of CARICOM leaders. This was aptly demonstrated when the Conference of CARICOM Heads of Government, at its 32nd Regular Meeting in St. Kitts and Nevis, requested that the CARICOM Secretariat to convene this meeting of COTED to consolidate CARICOM’s preparations for the 17th Conference of the State Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to be held in Durban, South Africa in December 2011.
In this context, he said that the Government of Guyana welcomed the space the meeting offered toward proposing a regional approach to environmental challenges which “may very well appear intractable” if there were tackled by individual Member States.
“The world is at a stage today where so many things are unpredictable, and it therefore is imperative that we seek to tackle those issues relating to the environment and sustainable development which can be altered through actions we take.”
“In consolidating the Region’s approach, we would in effect be contributing to wider global action that is so necessary to urgently and comprehensively address these issues,” Prime Minister Hinds stated.
He recalled the concern CARICOM Heads of Government articulated in 2009, about the severe threats the Community faced in achieving internationally agreed development goals as well as efforts to achieve sustainable development, noting that those threats still persisted today.
It was therefore incumbent on the Community to forge ahead with harmonised approaches toward addressing environmental challenges, Prime Minister Hinds said.
Giving weight to the need for collective action, he pointed to the damage wrought by Hurricane Irene on The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos. Those events, he stated, should “make it even more pressing” for the Community to strengthen its resolve in advocating for the adoption of measures to avert catastrophic effects of climate change.
In preparation for the United Nations Rio+20 Conference, which will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2012, Hinds suggested that an inventory should be done of the actions taken in implementing the provisions of the Rio Conventions, the Mauritius Strategy and the Barbados Plan of Action, notwithstanding the constraints.
“We should recognize how far we have progressed in our efforts to transform our economies while sustainably managing our environment, and our own innovation and leadership in this area which have led to initiatives which can provide useful lessons for key issues such as the green economy – a key theme for Rio+20.”
Against that backdrop, he noted attempts by Guyana to contribute to the global fight against climate change through its Low Carbon Development Strategy from which it seeks to receive performance based payments from sustainable forestry management. He also underscored the country’s steps towards the establishment of a green economy through a Hydro Power Project that would meet the majority of its electricity power needs with clean, reliable and economic energy.