Guyana looking at all opportunities to assist with Climate Change

Nov 20, 2015 News

– Presidential Advisor

By Mondale Smith
Guyana is looking at all available opportunities to assist with Climate Change, says Presidential Advisor on the Environment, Rear Admiral Gary Best.

Presidential Advisor on the Environment, Rear Admiral Gary Best

Best told Kaieteur News during an exclusive interview that, as is the case with CARICOM, if not a two-degree limit, CARICOM countries are looking for at least a 1.5 degree limit, and Guyana is poised and going really well in relation to COP 21 (the 2015 Paris Climate Conference) in tandem with the position of CARICOM.
“Our preparations are regional as well as national.”
Best said on the international front, Government is working towards securing funds from reputable organizations, including the Global Environmental Facility and Green Climate Fund. “There are also the bilateral relations…the Guyana-Norway Funding agreement and possible other agreements not only with Norway, but other countries.”
Guyana, Best assures, continues to have active ongoing discussions with Norway following the expiration of the two nations’ agreement last June as regards to addressing Climate Change.
He also noted that “We are having discussions concerning a new agreement, while we are seeing how best we can complete this current agreement.”
On the local front, the Presidential Advisor said despite there not being enough recognition, there are other ongoing activities in government that speak directly to Climate Change being addressed locally. These include the greening of the economy and the Green Bartica project.
Meanwhile, yesterday the Guyana Local Government Officers’ Union (GLGOU) issued a call for the Mayor and City Council to establish a vibrant and innovative environmental goods and services sector that includes providers of waste management and recycling techniques and services, producers of environmental technologies, providers of energy efficiency and renewable energy techniques and suppliers of environmental monitoring services
Union President Dale Beresford told press operatives that the necessary political and economic framework for solving the climate crisis will need to focus, amongst others, on public infrastructure and public services, and on making adequate resources available to support a just transition for workers and communities.
This, Beresford said, will provide many new jobs, protect the planet, and address social injustice.

GLGOU president, Dale Beresford

He posited that the role of governments in solving the climate crisis is fundamental, as corporations have demonstrated that they are part of the problem, unable to deliver the solutions the world needs, as the market does not respond to the general interest.
“The GLGOU supports these demands and calls on our national and local governments, also in cooperation with their national federations, to adopt this position and hold it at COP 21 to be held on the 29th November 2015 in Paris.
The solutions to the climate challenge require a substantive transformation of the current socioeconomic development paradigm, including industrial change.”
The GLGOU President made it clear that it is not just about some technical changes to energy production or transport systems.
Further, Beresford said it is not just about adapting diesel engines to pollute less or transitioning from fossil to renewable energy.
“What is required is a redefinition of the predominant model of production and consumption. We must give back to the state and public services their role in supporting our communities, and ensure that workers and trade unions are able to participate fully in all steps of this process.”
Beresford posits that a green economy requires both a healthy, educated and informed workforce, with green jobs skills and consumers with awareness of sustainable consumption.
In addition, he said a green economy must invest in people and social capital — through health care, education services and access to social safety nets — independent of the consideration of individuals as human capital, and should ensure that the benefits of economic growth are equitably shared.
“This emphasis on investing in people helps to safeguard respect for human rights, including the rights of children, women and employees.
Investments in people should help empower individuals and groups to become agents of positive societal change. Employees and managers should explore opportunities to collaborate in building workplaces that are greener, safer and more decent.”
“A green economy will create job opportunities in some sectors while shedding jobs in others, and the formulation of any green economy policies, programmes and projects should identify new goods and services as well as transitional arrangements that can accommodate the shifting of jobs within and across sectors.”
This effort, Beresford noted, requires inter-agency and inter-ministerial collaboration and coordination, ensuring that the predicted net positive benefits in job creation become a reality. Pro-poor economic opportunities may be found in sectors such as agriculture, forestry; water, waste management and sanitation services where green economy interventions can enhance livelihoods.
An investment in natural capital is also an investment in human capital — through enhancing food and nutrition security — particularly in low-income and environmentally vulnerable areas. It can also support social entrepreneurship and small business development, but entrepreneurs and informal businesses in poor communities desperately need public institutions that facilitate their access to markets and green business opportunities.
The transition to a green economy will rely heavily on innovation and entrepreneurship, dynamic areas which government regulatory and control mechanisms must take care in enabling rather than limiting. What societies need is technological and social innovation that is of the fundamental rather than incremental kind. In considering ways of making this transition happen, international agencies and governments alike need to consider how their interventions can help citizens and organizations to overcome the problem of social inertia.”
“This highlights the apparent convenience of business as usual and unsustainable patterns of consumption that continue to be engrained by inappropriate incentives. A people-centred green economy implies the changing of consumer behaviour in resource-intensive consumption areas such as food, housing and mobility.
Effecting this change in behaviour will require innovation in knowledge, management systems and incentive mechanisms. International agencies need to scale up their support programmes in education and training, research and development, small business development, continual improvement in resource efficiency and access to innovative financing.”
Decent work and green jobs initiatives to address employment and the quality of working conditions highlight the goal of decent work as promoted by the International Labour Organization (ILO). The ILO Director General’s Report to the International Labour Conference in 1999 provided an early definition of what is meant by the concept of “decent work”.
“Decent work includes productive work under conditions of freedom, equity, security and dignity, in which rights are protected and adequate remuneration and social coverage are provided (ILO 1999). Since then, the ILO has attributed the following characteristics to decent work: productive and secure work; ensures respect of labour rights; provides an adequate income; offers social protection; and includes social dialogue, union freedom, collective bargaining and participation.