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Guyana is no global leader on the environment

Dec 03, 2015 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Guyana was never a leader in the global campaign to address climate change. The former President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, has achieved recognition for his role on this issue, but not Guyana per se.
The criticism, therefore, that Guyana has lost international standing in the climate change arena since the new government took over is a statement of self-promotion, since it is Bharrat Jagdeo who was the person who had achieved international repute for his position on climate change, and not necessarily Guyana.
Jagdeo has, since demitting office in 2011, been invited in his personal capacity to a number of international conferences dealing with the environment. He is considered an eminent personality in this field.
Under Donald Ramotar, Jagdeo continued to be invited to important international events on climate change. It was not Guyana that was being invited; it was Jagdeo in his personal capacity that was being invited. He was the Champion of the Earth and the Environment, not Guyana.
Jagdeo, of course owes his reputation as a global climate change advocate, to the Low Carbon Development Strategy, under which Guyana was supposed to earn a significant amount of money for the carbon services that it provided to the world.
As part of that strategy, Guyana had signed a major climate change deal with Norway. The agreement with Norway was expected to boost Guyana’s climate change reputation; it never did.
Norway, a major oil-producing nation and seeking carbon credits to offset its massive industrial emissions, used Guyana, and then used the LCDS to steal the environmental thunder internationally.
Just before he demitted office, former President Desmond Hoyte had attempted to have Guyana become a leader on global environmental issues, when he gifted without so much as a bottom-house consultation, more than one million acres of Guyana’s forest to the international community.
Guyanese were stunned when Hoyte made his announcement. He just decided to set aside an obscene amount of our forest to the international community without even broaching this topic with local stakeholders. But that is how dictatorships operate.
At the time, better use could have been put to the forest under international agreements, but Hoyte was more interested in building an international reputation for himself to compensate for his obvious lack of legitimacy at home.
That project failed. The international community was not interested then in any major undertaking that would involve them having to put money into anything.
Guyana, therefore, has never had a major leadership role or any significant political standing on the environment. And therefore the absence of President Granger in Paris, for a major climate change summit that is expected to hammer out a global deal on reducing emissions, is not going to be a major loss for Guyana.
Anyone remotely familiar with the manner, in which international conferences are organized, will appreciate that the outcomes of these conferences are determined by the preparatory meetings, and not at the conference itself, which is usually only a window-dressing event. It is the preparatory meetings at which the real decisions are made, and Guyana’s interest would therefore always be best addressed at this level rather than at any other level.
The absence of the President in Paris is therefore not a major loss to Guyana’s reputation or standing. Guyana had very little standing in the first place. The outcome of Paris is not going to be determined by Guyana’s presence. It is going to be determined by what the United States, the European Union, China, India and Brazil decide. They are the ones who have the greatest influence at these meetings.
President Granger is therefore right when he says that former President Jagdeo’s criticism of Raphael Trotman’s attendance at the meeting is unfair and unhelpful. It is indeed.

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