Guyana reports great strides on Climate Change

Guyana’s Office of Climate Change (OCC) has reported 2012 as a year of tremendous achievements that ultimately gels with the country’s developmental agenda.
Building on these accomplishments, the OCC would this year, continue implementing LCDS projects while raising stakeholder awareness and engagement at all levels. “Work is already underway towards a fourth payment under the Guyana-Norway partnership,” the OCC reported in a press release issued on Wednesday.
It added that, “Guyana, having successfully completed its Second National Communications, will commence work on its Third National Communications to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Guyana is one of few countries that have advanced its reporting to the UNFCCC.”
More so, work would continue on international advocacy at the level of the UNFCCC to work towards a global climate agreement, while at the same time to further advance bilateral and multi-lateral initiatives with the aim of sharing lessons learnt from the LCDS and build consensus among like-minded countries.
In an invited comment, Adviser to the President of Guyana within the OCC, Shyam Nokta, pointed out that that, “Guyana continues to make significant progress at the domestic and international level with its climate initiatives, and in particular the Low Carbon Development Strategy.”
He said that despite the challenges faced, the country “was able to successfully meet the requirements for a third consecutive payment from Norway.”
“This contribution,” he added, “along with the investment of domestic resources, will help us achieve the vision laid out in the LCDS.”
Further, Nokta noted that the “financing earned from Norway has started to flow to investments under the LCDS and these will help us to improve the livelihoods of Guyanese as well as increase our resilience to climate change and make the transition to a low-carbon economy.”
The OCC highlighted the release of the third tranche of payment from Norway as one of its major achievements for 2012. In December last, Guyana was approved to receive an additional US$45 million from Norway for its climate services in maintaining extremely low levels of deforestation while advancing the LCDS.

“This brought all three contributions from the Norway-Guyana climate and forest partnership to a total of US$115 million since the programme was announced in 2009,” the OCC reported.
Great strides were made too in implementing GRIF projects. Back in August, a project to establish an Amerindian Development Fund in Guyana was launched at a cost of US$6 million. This was the first to be initiated with funds from the Norway-Guyana deal and paved the way for implementing 27 of the 180 Community Development Plans, prepared by residents of the various Amerindian communities and approved at their villages’ general meetings. The plans cover a wide range of communal projects in areas of infrastructure, tourism, manufacturing, business enterprise and transportation.
Another LCDS initiative rolled out in 2012 targeted institutional support for the Guyana Forestry Commission, OCC and its project management office to the tune of US$7 million.
Further, during the year, Guyana completed its second national report to the UNFCCC, an activity that ended several years of work.  “The report provided an update on the progress Guyana has made in addressing climate change and in meeting its obligations to the UNFCCC over the last decade,” the OCC stated.