Govt. admits Guyana’s biggest threat is climate change but condemns global call to end fossil fuel projects

Aug 19, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – On Tuesday last, Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo, while addressing attendees at the Offshore Technology Conference organised by the Baker Institute in Houston, Texas, had admitted that one of, if not the biggest threat that Guyana faces is climate change. He said, “Well, its climate to a large extent, climate change. We had a flood in 2005 that wiped out the equivalent of 60 percent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and we just had one recently and we haven’t even done the assessment.”
It is now common knowledge that Guyana’s low-lying coastal plains along the Atlantic Ocean are highly populated and generally lie below sea level. At least 40 percent of the over 750,000 population live in Region Four, which includes the capital city, Georgetown. Over one metre of rain fell in January 2005, nearly five times the normal amount, with 65 centimetres in just five days (an estimated return period of 1,000 years). The extreme rainfall caused widespread flooding which affected almost half of Guyana’s population. The flooding situation earlier in the year had, like in 2005, devastated the country, with persons engaged in primary industries such as agriculture being especially hard hit. The Civil Defence Commission had reported that over 36,000 households across 300 communities in each of Guyana’s 10 administrative regions were affected.

Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo.

According to Dr. Jagdeo, although an assessment of the most recent floods this year has not yet been done, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) is lending assistance. Despite Guyana’s glaring vulnerability in the face of the impending and inevitable climate change driven by anthropogenic activity, the recently elected government has rejected the call for the cessation of new fossil fuel projects.
The International Energy Agency, a group of oil-consuming nations, this spring, said if governments wanted to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, there would be no need for new fossil fuel developments. A recent report by the world’s foremost authority on climate science, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which combines the work of over 230 scientists from 66 countries and references over 14,000 scientific papers, has revealed that the climate change situation is much worse than previously thought, and states that immediate action is needed to prevent catastrophic consequences.
Despite this clear warning to cut emissions now, the government had made it known that it does not support the call. The Vice President described as ‘unfair’ the calls by some for Guyana to ‘leave the oil in the ground’ in support of net-zero by 2050 efforts. “There are many others who have been globally saying that to get to a decarbonised future, to get to net-zero by 2050, there should be no further investments in oil and gas assets,” Dr. Jagdeo said. “So, what is our position on this? We believe it’s totally unfair,” he asserted.
He said despite efforts to cut emissions and embrace the Paris Agreement, the world is not doing enough to keep global temperatures at 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, and the demand for energy is far outstripping the investment for renewables.
“So, the world will need to use fossil fuels even if the transitional fuel is gas, as we get into that future. So, the people who are calling for us not to develop an industry in a small country like Guyana… we cannot remain locked into a cycle of low carbon emissions but low income,” he stated.
The government’s justification for such a controversial position, according to the Vice President, is that there is a legitimate expectation on the part of the Guyanese people that they should prosper. “Guyana’s per capita income is now $6,000. Our people have a legitimate expectation of prosperity too. The United States is 70 odd thousand dollars per capita. The other developed countries are within that range or a little bit lower. So, we have a legitimate expectation to grow the per capita income, and rapidly too. This industry can contribute to that,” he pointed out.
In light of various analysts previously saying that Guyana is poised to rake in billions of dollars from development of its vast hydrocarbon resources, Vice President Jagdeo has lamented that “if we freeze all new investments now in the oil and gas sector, particularly in countries like Guyana, there is still a four trillion-dollar industry –that’s producing for the global demand. What these activists are doing, is they want to lock this investment in for the incumbents.”
Jagdeo, who leads the nation’s energy development, said Guyana will develop its oil industry in an environmentally friendly way with regulations for safe, low-carbon operations. Despite the Government’s support for the oil industry, not every Guyanese feels the same way. In May, convinced that ExxonMobil’s Stabroek Block operations will lead to the emission of tonnes of greenhouse gases in the billions, two Guyanese filed a landmark case in the Constitutional Court, seeking a declaration that the said operations violate their right to a healthy environment. The two applicants, through their lawyers, asked that a declaration be made by the court to say that the State’s duties under Article 149J (1), require that it refrains from authorising activities that would contribute significantly to climate change, ocean acidification and/or sea level rise.
The applicants’ corroborative research, which was attached to the claim, highlights that billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases would be emitted into the atmosphere due to offshore petroleum extraction activities. The 22,030,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases from petroleum operations in the Liza Phase 1 Development Project, proposed emissions of 34,545,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases from the Liza Phase 2 Development Project, and the proposed direct emission of 35,720,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases from petroleum operations in the Payara Development Project would make the environment more harmful to the health and wellbeing of citizens and future generations by significantly exacerbating and/or contributing to climate change, ocean acidification, and rising sea-levels and as such would amount to a violation of Article 149J (1), according to court papers.
Article 149J (1) imposes upon the State two primary obligations: (a) an obligation to respect the environment, which requires the State to refrain from interfering with or causing damage to the environment; and (b) an obligation to protect or guarantee the health of the environment.