Left holding the bag – an empty, costly one

Jan 04, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Some Guyanese have a saying: who don’t hear, will feel pain and pay harsh prices. What has application in real life to persons also has similar effects on nations. This is what the foremost global body is alerting our leaders to, and all Guyana also: “Solar now cheapest source of power in most countries – investment in fossil fuel infrastructure will become stranded assets -UN Secretary General” (KN September 26).
Information about cheap solar power as an energy source has been circulating more now. Still, the Guyana Government, as spearheaded by its oil king, Vice President (VP Bharrat Jagdeo, has little interest in such developments, and great impatience with those who present such narratives.
The VP has sharply dismissed any talk, any reasoning, where alternatives in the renewable energy field are concerned.
In fact, he has been openly scornful and dismissive of pronouncements from world renowned oil players and presences.
The only one who knows what is there to know about Guyana’s oil, is he himself, and those who toady up, to support his weakening positions.
Given this development from no less a body than the UN, and less an authority than its Secretary General (SG), Antonio Guterres, it would be interesting to see if the VP also contemptuously waves him off, as being another from the ‘no brainer’ crowd.
Whether the VP does so, or does otherwise, is not important. What is important, are four statements from the UN’s SG, which we now quote at length.
First, and they all elaborate on our caption, is: “Solar photovoltaics are now the cheapest power source in most countries,” and “renewable yield three times more jobs than the fossil fuel sector” and “Solar and wind are the stars of our energy system.”
The fourth statement is reserved for later in this writing. Now we would like to hear how the VP counters such authoritative positions, from a real fearless and honest leader, like the UN’s Antonio Guterres.
He will not risk disagreeing with him so soon after sharing space with the SG last year or to challenge the basis of the UN’s very deep and broad oil enlightenments. It goes without saying that Guyana’s VP Jagdeo is smart enough to let this one blow over, while he continues rushing thoughtlessly ahead.
The VP will simply put his head down and plough forward in elephantine heaviness. We at this paper say this, because no wise national leader can go directly against “cheapest power source” and “three times more jobs” since those are such eye-popping realities and politically mouthwatering prospects.
We say something else, so that Guyanese understand us clearly. Our position is not that the VP brings oil exploration and production to a dead stop. Only that he slows down and carefully weighs the stirring new developments coursing through the energy world. He needs time and the necessary skills (currently lacking) to get to the heart of all these sometimes competing, other times disputed, information overloads, so as to make decisions that hold the best possible returns for all Guyana.
This does not mean his inner circle alone, or the crooked cabal that he surrounds himself with alone, but every single Guyanese man, woman, and child.
It is about balance that combination of fossil fuel priorities executed right alongside the pioneering changes in the renewable world. Our oil is too precious to leave in the ground, that’s for sure. But because Exxon needs to get it out in a hurry, so that it can justify gambling so heavily here on cheap oil, slower is better for Guyana. It is our position that the slower Guyana goes with oil production, the faster that Exxon will get to see things our way, meaning, doing much more for us or to say it differently, we turn the tables on this oil predator (and allies) and hold its profitability hostage.
The fourth quote from SG Guterres is now timely: “there is no reason for countries…to finance new fossil fuel exploration…infrastructure…these will become stranded assets.” We rename “stranded assets” differently: white elephants, and more harshly, deadweights; still more unsparingly rusting, wasting hulks. We have deadweights for political leaders; we certainly don’t need deadweight oil infrastructure. Dr. VP, are you listening?

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