A team from Guyana’s GPL technical staff departed Guyana for Jamaica where they will join their counterparts in Jamaica to help restore electrical lines destroyed by Hurricane Beryl. Guyana is standing strong with our sisters and brothers in Jamaica. We continue to provide various kinds of support also to St Vincent and the Grenadines and to Grenada. Standing with our Caricom sisters and brothers is not a new thing for Guyana. We should all be proud of an outstanding record of solidarity, especially in times of crisis, such as a hurricane leaving destruction behind or the ruins caused by an earthquake. Whatever the crisis, Guyana has stood solidly with our sisters and brothers in Caricom.
When an earthquake caused the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives and destroyed homes and infrastructure in Haiti in 2010, Guyana stood tall, averaging the highest donation per capita to Haiti and leaving hundreds of GDF soldiers in Haiti to help rebuild that country. Therefore, when some insist that Guyana is using our newly-acquired resources from oil to provide support to our sister countries in Caricom which suffered losses from Hurricane Beryl, they are wrong. With or without oil, Guyana always stands tall, providing support, whether we can afford to or not. Our philosophy, the principles on which we act when our sister countries face natural disasters, is to provide support immediately.
We must heap praise on our government for acting without delay. Watching carefully the forecasts for Hurricane Beryl and the catastrophic predictions, President Irfaan Ali gathered the relevant authorities in Guyana, including the Private Sector, and started the process of gathering material and putting in place personnel such as from the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Defence Force. Neither he nor his team knew which Caribbean countries would have been hit, but the President and the team knew one or more Caribbean countries would have felt the assault of Hurricane Beryl. Our Government wanted to ensure we were ready to deploy help to whichever country required it in the aftermath of Beryl. We were ready and help poured out of Guyana at the very first opportunity provided by Beryl’s departure from the area.
Beryl was a message, another message to us. Climate change is real. Beryl is the earliest Category Five hurricane in recorded history to develop and ravage the Caribbean. By the time it hit Grenada and then St Vincent and the Grenadines, Beryl was a Level 5 hurricane, the most powerful hurricane ever to hit the Caribbean so early in the season. While others want to debate the reality of climate change, we in the Caribbean have been painfully feeling it through deaths and destruction.
It is why the Climate Justice Movement must demand more for vulnerable states like our Caricom States. Whether it is the Caricom countries on the mainland of South America or the Caribbean Islands, climate change has caused immense havoc on us all. Those most responsible for global warming are the very ones who today mostly sustain the debate. But the cost has been borne to a great extent by people and vulnerable States, like the Caricom countries. The time has come for a global fund for climate damages, such as those that Beryl has left in its path. Climate justice is a real thing and we cannot afford to merely push it aside.
This week Guyana signed an agreement with the World Bank for US$45 million to be used for resiliency development. The Coastal Adaptation and Resilience (CARes) Project is the second largest investment being made from the Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund (GRIF), a fund set up by the Government with the carbon credit resources generated through the agreement with the Government of Norway. This is not a loan; it is money from the Fund Norway paid to Guyana through the World Bank. The project will see the rehabilitation or reconstruction of kokers across the country. It is a project to improve Guyana’s capacity to manage flood conditions.
When people question the wisdom of the Low Carbon Development Strategy, this is what they are ignoring. Guyana, through the leadership of then President Bharrat Jagdeo, in 2010 had established the LCDS. The David Granger-led APNU/AFC Government recklessly abandoned the LCDS and replaced it with what they called the Green State Strategy (GSS). Not a cent has ever been generated by the GSS. This caused Guyana to lose five full years. Now Guyana is not just benefiting from Norway’s almost US$250 million of carbon credit, but between 2022 and 2032, more than US$750 million from the sale of carbon credits to Hess Corporation. Hess agreed to procure 37.5 million high-quality REDD+ carbon credits which represent 30 per cent of Guyana’s 2019 stock of carbon credits. These carbon credits have been certified under the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) programme. It is worthy to note that 15 per cent of the US$750 million are allocated already to Amerindian communities.
Guyana was the first country to have carbon credits officially verified and certified for sale, amounting to more than 125M TREES. Out of the remaining 88M TREES, Guyana can now sell carbon credits also to airlines. ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) has opened up the possibility that airlines could procure close to 5M TREES from Guyana during the 2024-2026 compliance period. Once Guyana is able to sell these credits, Guyana could generate, depending on the global market price for carbon, more than US$100 million.
There are the naysayers who dubbed the LCDS as a gimmick and a dream. But Guyana is now a leader in LCDS and every citizen is benefiting from the visionary approach of our Government. Unlike David Granger who abandoned the LCDS, President Irfaan Ali has embraced the LCDS. President Ali is leading the initiative to use carbon credits to build resilience. While not waiting for the world to act, Guyana is moving ahead with our contribution to fighting climate change and pursuing a path for climate justice.