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Commonwealth Finance Ministers meetings opens today
Climate change high on agenda
By Neil Marks
CLIMATE change tops the agenda of Commonwealth Finance Ministers this year
as they look to lobby for funds to fight the current effects of climate
change and prepare for further troubles.
The Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting (CFMM) opens at the National
Cultural Centre this evening with President Bharrat Jagdeo delivering the
main address.
Guyana is taking forward its case that it should be compensated for keeping
most of its forest intact, and is pressing for the new international
agreement on climate change to be developed within the next five years to
make provision for this.
The Kyoto Protocol, the first international agreement to fight climate
change, ends in 2012. Guyana has argued against its ironic principles which
provide help for countries which have cut down their forests and are
replanting, but nothing for those countries that have kept the forest
intact. Some 75 percent of Guyana's rainforest remains in its pristine
state.
The issue of climate change has now become a global one, says Deputy
Commonwealth Secretary General Mr. Ransford Smith, and it is hoped that the
international financial institutions providing money for development should
begin looking at programmes for adaptation and mitigation more seriously.
The authorities here have said that the unusual rainfall in 2005, which
devastated the coastland was as a result of changing weather patterns, and
the government reinvigorated the National Climate Committee.
In addition, through a motion taken to the 65-seat National Assembly in
mid-March this year, the Parliament of Guyana agreed to examine the
possibility of setting up a National Commission on Climate Change and
Mitigating Measures to make recommendations and monitor actions which must
be taken to address the situation.
Smith, addressing local and foreign journalists preparing to cover the CFMM,
said the choice for Guyana as the host of the meeting is noteworthy given
that the country accounts for an "immense stock of rainforest" and is a
significant player in the debate on climate change.
But what methodology should be used in rewarding countries like Guyana for
making the choice of not clearing their forests? This is the question that
the ministers have to brainstorm, the Director of the Economic Affairs
Division of the Commonwealth Secretariat said yesterday.
The CFMM takes place just before the governors of the International Monetary
Fund and the World Bank meet in Washington, and so it is hoped that the
consensus countries of the 53-member Commonwealth could reach on this issue
would have a bearing on those meetings.
Mr. Smith said that Guyana stands in a position to influence the debate in
Georgetown over the next three days, given its vulnerability of being below
sea level and having most of the population living on the thin coastal belt
and could be devastated by rising sea levels.
When Commonwealth Heads of Government meet in Kampala, Uganda late next
month, they would press the case for assistance for the Iwokrama Centre,
which is figuring more and more in the climate change debate.
The Centre manages the nearly one million acre (371,000 hectares) Iwokrama
Forest in central Guyana to show how tropical forests can be conserved and
sustainably used to provide ecological, social and economic benefits to
local, national and international communities.
Iwokrama had its genesis at the meeting of Commonwealth Heads in Malaysia in
1989, but has faced the twin challenge of being under-funded and largely
unheard of to locals and to the world as well.
Smith said while the Commonwealth has put considerable resources into
Iwokrama, as has the government of Guyana, the hope was not for Iwokrama to
be dependent, but to be financially viable by developing a number of
activities including tourism, training, and sustainable logging.
The Centre has put in place a business plan to meet its US$500, 000
operational budget in the next three years.
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