During the recent climate change conference in Peru, Guyana insisted that if forest countries are to reconcile the world’s needs for forests to be kept intact with their own need to develop, then the challenge for battling climate change has to be to make national development and sustainable use of forests complementary, not competing objectives.
For this to happen, the right economic incentives need to be in place to ensure there are economically viable alternatives, Minister Robert Persaud argued during the Conference of Parties (COP 20) meeting held between December 1 and 12 last.
The COP 20 was the 20th annual meeting of countries which are parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which is dedicated to fighting global warming by reducing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to a level that would prevent dangerous interference with the climate system.
Guyana was represented by a delegation headed by Minister Persaud.
During a presentation to the conference, Minister Persaud observed that the 20th COP was taking place amidst increasingly compelling scientific evidence that climate change was the most urgent global threat facing humanity.
He related that for small islands and low lying coastal states, the recent confirmation that average global temperatures and sea levels are rising faster than predicted spell disaster if left unchecked.
He stressed that the risk is particularly acute in Guyana where ninety per cent of the population live on a coastal strip that lies at or below sea level.
“For my country, with most of our population and infrastructure below sea level, our very survival is threatened by these increasingly negative impacts. It is imperative that adaptation be inscribed as an important element, and that the requisite resources be provided to help vulnerable countries safeguard themselves as they seek to grow sustainably and develop a green economy”.
He informed the representatives of the 200 odd countries which attended COP 20 that even before COP 15 held in Copenhagen Denmark in 2009 , Guyana had already adopted a Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) which aims to conserve and sustainably manage its forests so as to reduce global carbon emissions, and at the same time, attract resources to foster growth and development along a low carbon emissions path.
“The agreement between Guyana and Norway launched one of the first national-scale Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation( REDD+)initiatives in the world.”
He stressed that REDD+ efforts to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests was necessary if the world is to achieve the target of containing global warming to no more than two degrees above pre-industrial levels.
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He called on COP 20 to ensure that the Warsaw Framework for REDD+. which addressed results-based payments for developing countries from multiple sources , is operationalised and implemented.
COP 19 held in Warsaw Poland in 2013 had also established the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage, giving policymakers a formal structure within which to discuss compensating countries for the damage caused by climate change.
Persaud emphasised that financial support for implementation of national adaptation actions by developing countries must be adequately provided.
Climate finance, he said , should be defined as the requisite means of implementing required actions and must be new and additional and adequate, and most importantly, there must be simplified and prioritised access for countries with capacity constraints and high vulnerability.
He urged that the Green Climate Fund, (GCF) which was established at the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009 to channel money to help developing countries in implementation, must be a central pillar of the financial architecture.
He said, “Under the UNFCCC we have a package of REDD +, plus decisions from Warsaw. Under the Green Climate Fund we have the recently approved Logic Model for REDD + results based payments. “
“We must work to bridge the two without delay in order to promote coherence and synergies in efforts to conserve and sustainably manage forests to mitigate climate change.”
The COP 20 has been said to be an important prelude to COP 21 to be held in Paris in 2015, when representatives of parties to the UNFCCC are expected to arrive at a new legally binding deal to drastically reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases which cause global warming and resultant climate change.
The COP is the supreme decision body of the UNFCCC comprising representatives of the countries which signed the convention.
The COP meets once a year with these meetings forming the focal point of international climate change negotiations.
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