Mood swing
From all indications general elections in Guyana will be held in 2015. But something else will occur in 2015 that will have important significance for the future direction of the country and the world of business. As Guyana prepares for elections, it will have to keep an eye on preparations for the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) who are signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. That gathering will assemble in France towards the end of 2015 and make another effort to achieve a global framework that could help to minimize or avoid the catastrophic effects of climate change. The 20th Conference of the Parties will come to a close today in Peru, but it is for next year’s session of the COP that countries apparently are reserving the biggest decisions. The world trophy to be hoisted would be the global agreement to replace the Kyoto Treaty. The mood swing that a successful global treaty will emerge from the 21st session next year stems from the accord reached between China and the USA on action to reduce greenhouse gases, and the determination shown by countries in Peru not to be thwarted in their efforts.
A better world
Linked to the annual attempts to fashion a better world for today and tomorrow are the design and use of better tools to measure the economic impact of human activity. These tools consist of practical changes that will eventually affect the way in which countries account for their national income. Soon, it would no longer be business as usual for the world is headed in the direction of accounting that integrates environmental and economic variables, and countries are being encouraged to move in that direction. Their ability to do so is being facilitated by the release of the 2012 collaborative version of the System of Environmental and Economics Accounts (SEEA) that has been produced by the UN for use on an experimental basis. The emergence of SEEA is a consequence of the limitation of the
