Unfair environment preservation burden for developing world -Insanally tells UN

http://www.stabroeknews.com/index.pl/article?id=56530221
Unfair environment preservation burden for developing world -Insanally tells UN

Thursday, October 4th 2007
Stabroek News

Rudy Insanally Industrialised countries demanding that developing ones which suffer from "a chronic lack of resources" bear greater responsibility for preserving the environment through "shared responsibility is clearly unequal and unfair," Minister of Foreign Affairs Rudy Insanally says. He is also calling for "Partnership for Additionality" in which developed countries will make a commitment to the preservation of the environment and developing countries will be provided with adequate and predictable financing to allow them to pursue a path of accelerated and sustainable development. In a statement to the Sixty-Second Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, USA on Tuesday, Insanally said that Guyana fully understood and responded to the challenges of climate change when more than a decade ago it made available to the international community almost one million acres of its pristine forest for study of bio-diversity and sustainable development. However, he noted that the future of the project, the Iwokrama Rainforest Centre for Conservation and Development, was now threatened since financial support from the international community has become increasingly scarce. He reiterated President Bharrat Jagdeo's position at the High Level Event on Climate Change on September 24, 2007 that the Kyoto Protocol rewards quite perversely "those who burn and pillage their resources but punishes others like Guyana who are committed to preserving their standing forests." This inequity, he said, should no longer be tolerated. Insanally stated that any post-Kyoto Agreement must be endowed with the resources necessary for its full implementation. Noting that development assistance statistics have shown a marked diminution in levels from past years with little promise of any additional or new financing needed for environment-related projects, he suggested that "there needs to be a "Partnership for Additionality, which in return for a commitment by countries to the preservation of the environment, will provide adequate and predictable financing to allow them to pursue a path of accelerated and sustainable development." In this regard, he said it was high time the commitments given at the Monterrey Conference on Financing Development be honoured. Guyana, he said, was further sensitised to the threat of climate change as a result of frequent floods which wreak economic havoc on the country's coastal population with the last major one being in 2005 when the economic loss suffered was nearly 60% of the country's GDP. He noted that the tragedy occurred at about the same time as the Tsunami disaster in Asia and the Guyana floods did not feature prominently on the radar screen and so received little notice in the international community. Noting further that Guyana was on the road to recovery with the assistance of a few friendly countries and the resilience of the people, Insanally said that the experience was renewing Guyana's call for the strengthening of multilateral facilities to provide all victims of national disasters with prompt and adequate relief. Guyana's energy policy Alarmed at the recent UN Panel on Climate Change report warning about the disastrous effects that global warming is likely to have on the hemisphere, including the probable collapse of the Amazon eco-system within forty years and increased tropical storms in the Caribbean, he said that the Guyana government has formulated an ambitious energy policy aimed at reducing the country's reliance on fossil fuels and developing alternative possibilities such as sugar- based ethanol and hydropower. Guyana, he said, was also committed to a "sensible policy of conservation through good practices and the use of energy saving techniques." He said, too, that in the face of mounting evidence that climate change is in fact imperilling the earth and its resources, some developed states appear willing to accept "albeit reluctantly - that carbon emissions must be significantly reduced to preserve the ozone layer as a shield from the effects of greenhouse gases." Even so, he said that they do not seem to accept primary responsibility for protecting the environment and instead of "common but differentiated responsibility" they speak of "shared responsibility" demanding a greater contribution by developing countries to the campaign against climate change. This demand, he said, "often becomes a conditionality for any development assistance that they provide." He noted that the environment has become frightening with the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increasing by more than 25% leading eventually "if unmitigated, to a rise in the earth's temperature in excess of five degrees by the end of the century; and an increase in sea levels by two metres with one-third of the world's population being affected." Simultaneously, he noted, the world's forests are said to be vanishing at the rate of 15 million hectares a year, threatening the loss of almost 50 per cent of forest cover in developing countries with a heavy toll on the economic and social growth of many countries through a higher incidence of drought, desertification, flooding and other natural disasters. The primary responsibility for this environmental degradation has been correctly laid at the door of "those developed countries whose industrialization policies and programmes have shown scant regard for the preservation of the global eco-system."