President Ramotar urges all countries to play their part

President Donald Ramotar on Tuesday warned world leaders to summon the political will to fight climate change or risk destroying the lives and livelihoods of future generations.

Speaking at a Climate Change Summit held at the United Nations Ramotar said: “We are far from achieving a less-than-two-degrees climate target, and our world is heading for climate catastrophe. If this continues, it will reverse development progress and destroy the lives and livelihoods of future generations. We possess the knowledge and the power to avert this catastrophe – but the international community is yet to summon the political will to turn this knowledge into meaningful action. We must use our presence as Heads of State and Government at this Summit to bring focus on the reality that the solutions to climate change can only be realised with requisite political will.”

The Guyanese leader said in the 15 months to Paris, the world must ensure that industrialised countries need to take deeper cuts in emissions as part of their contribution to the 2015 agreement. He said pledges since Copenhagen have been weak and insufficient and will “see us falling significantly short of the goal we have set ourselves”.

Secondly, Ramotar said developing countries are ready to take actions to develop along low carbon and climate resilient paths, but the global financial system makes such actions difficult. Those countries most responsible for this climate change problem must take the lead in supporting those which are most vulnerable and least responsible. “So, either we find ways to generate large flows of assistance to the developing world, or we find a way to provide better incentives for low carbon development than is the case today,” the president said.

Thirdly, he told the Summit that there has been a tragic erosion of trust since Copenhagen, with many developed countries failing to make their financial pledges a reality. It is vital that the ‘Green Climate Fund’ be capitalised urgently and at the scale required and furthermore that it be made fully operational no later than 2015.

Additionally, Ramotar said forests can offer up to 20 per cent of the climate solution, once the right financial incentives are in place. We cannot achieve the 2 degree goal without REDD+. The last COP in Warsaw delivered a REDD Plus decision for an international framework for payments. What remains now is for the financing to be made available to implement REDD Plus in forested countries. Such a financing scheme must include payments for ecosystem services.

“Mr Secretary General, in my own country we are committed to action and have been acting for many years now. In 2009, Guyana launched one of the world’s most ambitious Low Carbon Development Strategies – and set out a new development path that is based on deploying our forests to mitigate global climate change while using the benefits to enable low carbon development, improving climate change resilience and enabling national development.”

He said the Guyana-Norway partnership has provided the impetus to move the LCDS forward but more such partnerships are needed. Under the LCDS, Guyana has advanced work in renewable energy and in creating sustainable, low-carbon livelihoods for communities. “Our indigenous peoples have greatly benefitted from these initiatives. We have also mainstreamed climate change across the entire policy matrix. As a low-lying coastal state, we are particularly vulnerable to devastating climate change impacts.

“Adaptation activities and building resilience to improve our ability to cope are indispensable elements of our climate strategy,” the president told the Summit. He asserted that firm financial commitments are essential to the success of these efforts and must be significantly increased to facilitate broad-scale deployment and allow their long-term sustainability. “… I am confident that implementation of these measures will see us achieving the goals we have set ourselves and avert the catastrophe that looms before us. My country Guyana pledges to shoulder its share of this responsibility in full. We call on the rest of the world to do the same.”