Climate Action 2010-2011

Redd, Sustainable Forest Management and Agriculture
climate services scheme and catalyse transformative
private investment of up to US$2 billion in identified
low-carbon priorities.
Incentives are working
Now that we have incentives for avoiding deforestation
and forest degradation in place, we are able to start the
transformation of the Guyanese economy through a
balanced blend of large-scale strategic investment and
community-led economic and social empowerment
activities.
For example, we are using forest payments to catalyse
significant private finance to build hydro-power capacity.
This will deliver cheaper electricity to our citizens
and businesses, and simultaneously enable Guyana’s
power sector to transition to nearly 100 per cent clean,
renewable energy sources.
We are starting to nurture private sector investments in
six transformative low-carbon sectors and over a billion
dollars in annual export potential from low-carbon
Incentives to protect forests
are not a side issue in the fight
against climate change: there
is no solution to climate
change without them.
sectors is being pursued. In parallel, we are starting to
implement almost 200 Community Development Plans
created by our Amerindian (indigenous) communities.
Based on priorities identified by villages, initial work
includes installation of solar power in villages; expansion
of IT networks to connect communities with government
services and markets for their produce; and provision of
specific assistance for new economic sectors.
We are also expanding the national digital
infrastructure including a fibre-optic link with Brazil;
investing in small business low-carbon development;
creating an International Centre for Biodiversity;
strengthening forest governance; building better
capabilities to monitor, report and verify forest carbon
abatement; and expanding social and economic
development programmes for indigenous peoples, forestdependent
communities and vulnerable groups.
An international blueprint for forest
protection?
I would not want to suggest that Guyana’s is the only
relevant model for forest protection. Every forest country
must be free to determine for themselves how best to
access and use internationally available incentives for
forest payments.
However, incentives to protect forests are not a side
issue in the fight against climate change: there is no
solution to climate change without them. And national
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models can inspire the broader international community
to believe that success is possible. So we hope that we
can provide part of that inspiration. We believe that we
are starting to prove that incentives for forest protection
work. We also believe that we are working through
the practical, detailed steps for earning and investing
the incentives in ways that safeguard the rights and
legitimate aspirations of our citizens.
Based on our experience, I believe that the
international community can deliver three significant
actions in the coming months:
1. International financing of the scale set out in the
IWG-IFR report should be put in place to create the
incentives needed to achieve a 25 per cent reduction
in deforestation and forest degradation by 2015. This
would cost less than €25 billion total over five years.
As a ‘price’ for 7Gt of emissions reductions, it is
evidently value-for-money.
2. Forest countries should put forward their own
strategies on how they can deliver their side of the
bargain. Large numbers of forest countries have said
that they are ready to act if the incentives are put in
place – and several countries, including Guyana, show
that ambition on REDD+ also delivers major progress
in biodiversity protection, poverty alleviation and
overall national development.
3. A specific financial mechanism for Redd+ should
be agreed by the international community and be
implemented immediately. Some people think this is a
point of detail but it is absolutely crucial – without the
GRIF, the Guyana-Norway partnership would not be
able to move forward.
All of the three actions I propose are do-able now.
Cumulatively over the next five years, they could deliver
the single biggest reduction in GHG emissions in history.
They can also build the foundation for a long-lasting
REDD+ solution. Most importantly, they can align the
development interests of forest countries with the action
we need in the battle against catastrophic climate change.
This is the fight of our generation, and the right action on
forests can help us to win it.
Bharrat Jagdeo has been President of Guyana since 1999.
Long an advocate for meaningful reform of international
institutions, he was the Chairman of the Board of Governors of
the IMF and World Bank in 2005. He is outspoken about the
need for urgent action on climate change and the important role
of developing countries in determining that action. President
Jagdeo was awarded the United Nations “Champion of the
Earth” award in 2010. Time Magazine and CNN also named
the President as one of their “Heroes of the Environment 2008”.
In early 2010, the Secretary General of the United Nations
asked President Jagdeo to serve on the Secretary General’s High
Level Advisory Group on Climate Finance.
Email: lowcarbonfuture@op.gov.gy
Website: www.lcds.gov.gy
www.climateactionprogramme.org