I am indeed delighted to welcome you all to Guyana for this Thirty-Seventh Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) on Environment and Sustainable Development.
Ladies and Gentlemen: It is indeed encouraging that we are meeting at this time to focus on this theme which is critical to us as a Region. In the Declaration of Barbados which ensued from the Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island States, we affirmed, that sustainable development programmes must seek to enhance the quality of life of our peoples.
The Region has not lost sight of the critical importance of the environment and sustainable development to the well-being of our people. This is especially significant since increasingly, global attention is focusing on the intrinsic link between the quality of life of our people and our ability to sustainably manage our environment.
It is in this context that our Leaders, at their 32nd Regular Session of the Conference of Heads of State and Government, in St Kitts and Nevis, last July, requested the CARICOM Secretariat to convene this meeting so that we could consolidate the Region’s preparations for the 17th Conference of the States Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to be held in Durban in December this year, as well as to agree on the Implementation Plan for the Regional Climate Change Strategic Framework. It is the considered view of the Government of Guyana that the Community’s collective interests would be best served if we continue to strive for harmonised regional positions on the environment and sustainable development, including climate change.
In this regard I wish to highlight the 2009 Liliendaal Declaration issued by CARICOM Heads of State and Government and which has served as an important guide to our regional negotiators. I wish to commend the efforts of these negotiators and those of our own Secretariat and the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre for their ongoing work in this process.
In less than a year the United Nations Rio+20 Conference will be held. As a Region, we need to take stock of our collective efforts towards implementing the provisions of the Rio Conventions, the Mauritius Strategy and the Barbados Plan of Action notwithstanding the constraints we have faced. We should recognize how far we have progressed in our efforts to transform our economies while sustainably managing our environment and our own innovation and leadership in this area which has led to initiatives which can provide useful lessons for key issues such as the green economy – a key theme for Rio+20.
In this context I wish to point to Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy which sets out how as a country we can progress onto a low carbon growth trajectory by deploying our entire forest, almost the size of England, in the global fight against climate change. This will be achieved only if the right economic incentives are in place and not at a compromise to our sovereignty. Through our partnership with Norway, Guyana has received performance based payments of approximately US$70 Million and will be eligible for a total of US$250 Million up to 2015.
These funds are being channeled to support our Low Carbon Development Strategy through projects identified out of an extensive national consultation process and which will have a transformative effect on the national as well as local economy. I wish to highlight a few of these projects which represent our first steps towards a green economy: – The Amaila Falls Hydro Power Project will, by 2015, meet the majority of Guyana’s electric power needs through energy that is clean, reliable and economical. The Project will effectively end Guyana’s total dependence on imported oil for power generation and open up opportunities for economic expansion; – Under the Hinterland Electrification Programme, clean and renewable energy will power 11,000 households across our 135 Amerindian/indigenous communities.
This programme has already started with funding from the Government of Guyana; – The Small and Micro Enterprise Development Project will allow for the provision of access to financing and the building of technical and business skills, thereby allowing vulnerable groups across Guyana to pursue alternative livelihoods. I wish to recall also that when our Heads of Government held their deliberations at Liliendaal in 2009, they expressed grave concern over the fact that the Region’s [and I quote] “efforts to promote sustainable development and to achieve internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals are under severe threat from the devastating effects of climate change and sea level rise” [end of quote].
They recognized that these two phenomena had led to increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events, damage to bio diversity, coral bleaching, coastal erosion, and changing precipitation patterns. Today our Region remains at risk to these phenomena. Over the last week The Bahamas, Haiti and the Turks and Caicos Islands experienced the brunt of Hurricane Irene that caused varying levels of damage to those countries.
The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency is also monitoring the washing ashore of large amounts of sea weed along the coast of some of our Member States inconveniencing the trade of fisher folk in particular. These examples and many more, make it even more pressing for us to strengthen our resolve in advocating for the adoption of measures to avert catastrophic climate change. The Government of Guyana therefore welcomes the space that this Meeting offers for us to propose a regional approach to those critical issues which may very well appear intractable were we to tackle them as individual states.
Guyana is mindful of the voice and recognition of CARICOM in the international arena and we are extremely desirous for this Meeting to be successful. The world is at a stage today where so many things are unpredictable, and it therefore is imperative that we seek to tackle those issues relating to the environment and sustainable development which can be altered through actions we take. In consolidating the Region’s approach, we would in effect be contributing to wider global action that is so necessary to urgently and comprehensively address these issues.
Moreover, Guyana is aware of the benefits of consulting with likeminded countries. As the Chair of the Union of South American Nations, we have taken the initiative to encourage dialogue between UNASUR and the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organisation towards the forging of agreeable positions.
We are guided by the provisions of the Liliendaal Declaration “… to ensuring that the Caribbean Community and its supporting institutions will play their full part in implementing our shared vision, goals and actions, working in strategic partnership with others.” Honourable Ministers, Delegates: This meeting’s agenda is quite extensive. It is my hope that building on the work of our Officials who met earlier this week, we can achieve a successful outcome from the deliberations over the next two days.
