Does Guyana have any message for COP 29?

Nov 12, 2024 Letters

Dear Editor

The 29th Conference of Parties (COP), the main vehicle for bringing world leaders together to combat global warming, opened yesterday November 12th in Baku Azerbaijan. Whether any leading Minister of the Guyana government will attend is, as yet, unknown. Given the Government’s undeniable commitment to “drill, baby, drill”, what message Guyana would have for a Conference whose chief priority is to reduce carbon emissions is equally unknown.

The COP meetings, sponsored by the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCC) have, in recent years, progressively been taken over by oil companies, whose representatives number more than a thousand delegates. Since ExxonMobil will be well-represented among this number, it might be concluded the Guyana Government need not attend since the two share the same fundamental position on accelerating rather than reducing carbon emissions.

Guyana’s justification for this policy is the argument that the country has the right to ‘catch-up’ with the developed world. If ‘developed’ meant those nations in which the majority of the population enjoyed equitable, sustainable-oriented and inclusive policies, it would be more acceptable. However, the evidence to date points in the direction of copying those nations whose privileged few enjoy untold wealth. This form of consumerism can never become the model across the population as a whole.

The major contradiction of ‘catching-up’ is that greater social equality can only be achieved in conjunction with reduced gas-based fuels, gas-based flaring and cement. The impact of access to water of the poorer segment of the Guyanese population, for example, by the upsurge in demand for water to sustain the huge current road and building construction programme, funded by the oil boom, has never been assessed. To say nothing of the current heat wave. Bottled water, black tanks and pumps are assumed available to everyone. Inequality goes hand-in-hand with rising emissions.

Prosperity-led strategies are also taking their toll on regulatory Agencies. The Guyana Police Force’s pursuit of ‘prosperity’ is the most prominent example, prompting questions about other, less prominent Agencies with responsibility for health standards, commercial products, genetically-modified seeds, building and licences of all kinds. All are vulnerable to the numbing of conscience and slick justifications used to manipulate rules for personal gain. All of the above is carrying Guyana more in the direction of oligarch-run societies than democracies, societies in which consumption patterns of the privileged are believed to be a ‘right’.

To this extent, Alister Routledge, ‘Guyana ExxonMobil’s President and Manager’ (as he is referred to in news videos), would not be too out-of-place representing Guyana at Cop29. Guyana’s Elon Musk – so to speak?