According to a press release from the Office of Climate Change, Norway has “committed to paying Guyana for forest climate services to the value of up to a quarter of a billion (US) dollars by 2015.” This commitment is the second largest in history, made to a single country’s efforts to combat deforestation.
The new Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) document will be released before the Copenhagen meeting of the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC) where it is expected to receive considerable international attention. Prior to that meeting President Bharrat Jagdeo is expected to meet with other world leaders in London, Manaus and Port of Spain, then he will lead Guyana’s delegation in Copenhagen. Chairperson of the National Toshao Council Yvonne Pearson will also be attending the UNFCCC meeting.
The president has said that Guyana is now in a position to provide other countries with a model but they may only be interested if they were confident of the predictability of payments for the climate services they provide. “In Guyana, we are starting the process of re-orienting our entire economy. Countries cannot be expected to do something so significant without reliable support from international partners,” Jagdeo said. He also said if the world was serious about curbing deforestation, people need to realise that solutions are doable and affordable “But they also need to know that success will not be achieved through outdated aid modalities.” Jagdeo added that providing climate change services is far more comparable to a business transaction between equal partners where one party has a service that the other should pay for based on exacting performance metrics.
The MoU between Guyana and Norway expresses “a willingness to work together to provide the world with a relevant, replicable model for how REDD-plus can align the development objectives of forest countries with the world’s need to combat climate change,” the release said. Under the agreement Norway will pay Guyana for avoided deforestation relative to an agreed metric. The memorandum is supported by a detailed concept note where the two parties establish a potential way forward on all the issues that have influenced the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD)-plus negotiations to date.
The release said the agreement was informed throughout by the ongoing negotiations within the UNFCCC and the two countries have specifically said that their goal is to work together to secure an effective global climate deal. According to the release the updated LCDS will show how the agreement is the start of a phased approach to integrate Guyana’s climate services into the global economy where ultimately a value is placed on Guyana’s forests that make them more economically valuable alive than dead. The LCDS will outline how this could happen over the next decade and how Norway’s payments will catalyse the start of that process.
