In the Stabroek news, Dr. Clive Thomas explains carbon-trading and discusses its implications:
Make no bones about it: the basic trajectory of the LCDS [Low Carbon Development Strategy] is to generate carbon credits/offsets, derived from the avoided deforestation of Guyana’s forests, for commercial sale on global carbon trading markets. For this reason, an appreciation of the workings of carbon markets is essential to its close evaluation. Several governments, international organisations, environment specialists and policy makers share the view that the global evolution of carbon-trading markets is the easiest achievable policy tool for successfully combating atmospheric pollution.
As this column has emphasised, atmospheric pollution is fast approaching a tipping-point, where the capacity of Planet Earth to sustain human life as we have come to know it, is at grave risk and therefore, the very survival of the human species is at stake. And, because the LCDS is geared to the long-term development of global carbon-trading, fed in part by Guyana’s forest carbon, the issues posed by the LCDS are presently among the most important facing the international community. From this perspective, an improved understanding of the so-called ‘mysteries and mystifications’ of carbon markets is all the more imperative.
To put it bluntly, however, what I hope to demonstrate by the end of this phase of my assessment of the LCDS is that the pursuit of a global carbon-trading mechanism as a solution to the global climate problem can instead result in a worsening of that problem.
Read the rest of the article at Stabroek News.
What is Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy? From lcds.gov.gy:
The Government of Guyana believes that we can protect and maintain our forests in the effort to reduce global carbon emissions and at the same time attract resources for our country to grow and develop. In order to do this effectively in the long term, we need a clear vision and a plan how to get there. This vision and plan is called our Low Carbon Development Strategy.
The Low Carbon Development Strategy has three main components:
1. Investment in low carbon economic infrastructure
This will include the development of hydropower to reduce reliance on petroleum based fuels, the upgrading of our sea defenses to protect against current and future impacts of sea level rise, improved roads, drainage and irrigation to unused, non-forested lands such as the Canje river lands and the intermediate savannas, and improved hi-tech telecommunications facilities to facilitate the development of low carbon businesses such as call centers.
2. Investment and employment in low carbon economic sectors
This will target investment in commercial production of fruits and vegetables, particularly in areas such as the intermediate savannahs; aquaculture and the export of fresh and frozen seafood; sustainable forestry utilizing the high internationally accepted standards of sustainable yield harvesting; and wood processing to produce high value products.
3. Investment in Communities and Human capital
This will ensure that our indigenous and other hinterland communities, as well as our other citizens including the urban poor, will have expanded access to improved social services such as health, education/vocational training, low carbon electricity and clean water, and employment that does not threaten the sustainability of the forest resources.
More information here.
[Photo: Nicholas Laughlin]
A report from the Miami Herald:
The Cuban government has announced intentions to 
Jamaica’s Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries is 
The Government of The Bahamas has 
