GOVT. RECALIBRATING CARBON CREDITS AGREEMENT WITH NORWAY

Mar 20, 2016 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

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The landmark agreement between Norway and Guyana signed in 2009 was supposed to have been premised on renewable energy initiatives, indigenous community development projects, development of the ICT sector, and establishment of a state-of-the-art biodiversity research centre at the University of Guyana.  From 2009 to 2015 next to none of these was accomplished.
According to Norway in 2009, “Guyana remains heavily forested and does not currently face significant deforestation pressure”.  That was pre-Baishanlin. Forest cover had remained constant between 1990 and 2005, then former president Bharrat Jagdeo began travelling the world offering to place Guyana’s forests under international supervision if other countries paid ‘his citizens’ to “not deforest the tropical landscapes”.
His campaign received major support when Norway announced first a $30 million recompense for Guyana to implement an “avoided deforestation” plan with a promise of an additional US$250M through to 2015.  It was one of the biggest forest conservation deals ever signed.  It was also an economic handshake for this small nation that boasted an intact rainforest covering an area larger than England.
Both sides had signaled their intention to “provide the world with a working example of how partnerships between developed and developing countries can save the world’s tropical forests”.  This was not Jagdeo’s first foray into the developed world seeking recompense for keeping Guyana’s forests intact.  Prior to the 2009 signing with Norway, Jagdeo had made an unprecedented offer in 2007 to place Guyana’s entire standing forests under the control of a British-led international body in return for a bilateral deal with the UK to secure development aid and the technical assistance needed to switch to a low carbon economy.  That was a non-starter.
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) is a worldwide effort to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions, and encouraging domestic and foreign investments in low-carbon projects.  REDD+ goes beyond deforestation and forest degradation.  It includes forest conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.  The deal with Norway was inked under the REDD+ initiative.
Guyana’s responsibility was to maintain the delicate balance between economic activities such as mining and logging and preserving its stands of forests.  The deal was essentially an economic incentive for the government to keep our forests intact.
Norway kept its promise and disbursed a portion of the funds over the first two years, but by 2011 the PPP government had begun to renege on its end of the bargain.  Holes – huge cut-outs very visible from high altitude – began to appear in the forest canopy then a major local newspaper, the Kaieteur News, printed a damning expose on the unchecked, careless desecration and diminution of our forests by the Chinese logging company, Baishanlin, and the Indian company Vaitarna Holdings.  Timber was being cut without regard to specie or age and exported in unbelievably large quantities with little to no monitoring by the PPP government and its agencies.
Norway took a step back around 2012 to re-examine the deliverables on the Guyana side.  They discovered our broken promises, the decimated forests and consequently activated the prescribed measures to pro-rate carbon credit payments to Guyana.  The agreement expired in 2015 with approximately half of the agreed US$250M unremitted to Guyana.
Then another damning discovery was made this year.  Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, announced that all, 100% of our productive forests had been parceled out by the PPP government before they were booted out of office in May 2015.
This betrayal of Guyanese people and their children’s children, the betrayal of the unprecedented lucrative agreement with Norway, and of Guyana’s international image and standing was difficult for Guyanese to swallow. It exposed the venal intentions of Jagdeo and his cronies to pocket the benefits of Norway’s largesse without delivering on the binding commitments they made with Norway and the rest of the Climate Change community.
When the excrement went airborne, they (PPP) sought to do some damage control by writing to the Norwegian government.  Even in the face of irrefutable, visible evidence, the PPP was bold enough to tell Norway that Minister Trotman had lied.  Jagdeo kept up the charade claiming that “only 55 percent of the forests” were doled out to be cut down.  He didn’t talk about any plans for regeneration/replanting of the decimated forests by mining or logging which were contained in the strategy document.  He simply showed the world that he had little concept of the national forest blueprint, the separation of areas earmarked for forest products production, agriculture, conservation and communities.  His 55 percent claim referred to all of Guyana’s forested lands.  Unbelievable!
This was one bald attempt to save face, to save the integrity of his LCDS and hide his true nature and intent from the pundits in and around the United Nations that had dubbed him the “Champion of the Earth” a few years earlier.
That reminds us … one highly acclaimed Russian Economist had dubbed Jagdeo’s LCDS “Junk Economics” when it was first unveiled.  Incidentally, Russia was one of the countries that awarded him one of the several Honorary Doctorate degrees he collected during his presidency.  ‘Junk Economics!’  That was the first time that some of us non-economists had come across that derisive term.  Then the goodly Russian Economist went on to recalibrate the high-sounding projects contained in the document.
Whether it was this or another international academic of high repute, someone tossed the LCDS into the garbage heap (we had plenty of those every few metres in every ward of the capital city at the time).  These ‘projects’, they said, had no tangible or immediate, or even eventual benefits for Guyanese people.
Distributing a few solar power panels very selectively to vulnerable hinterland residents who professed support for the PPP party was not a low carbon strategy.  That was politicking.  Planting a few hundred mangrove trees along the East Coast Demerara Atlantic shoreline is only part of what should have been a comprehensive project to re-plant mangroves along the entire length of coastline from Berbice to Essequibo.  Mangroves provide the best natural protection from shoreline erosion and ultimately from rising sea levels and salination of our fresh water rivers and creeks.
This coalition government is now in the process of renegotiating the Norway agreement.  Minister Trotman affirmed Guyana’s commitment to the partnership with the Kingdom of Norway at the January 2016 meeting with the Norwegian Ambassador to Brazil and Guyana, H.E. Aud Marit Wiig.  This time, the proceeds will go towards real development of the people who live off of and sustain the forests around them.  Citizens in urban and rural areas as well as the hinterland will also reap the benefits of properly designed infrastructural, health, social and environmental projects that will surely raise Guyana’s international profile.

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