Climate Change and Fossil Fuel Extraction – A Chance for Guyana to Demonstrate Global Leadership?
while generating positive economic ripples across our entire economy. Apart from reduction in carbon emissions from energy transition, maintenance of forest carbon is the country’s most vital contribution to our International (e.g. Paris Agreement) commitments. And, this is where Guyana can step on a path few others have tried i.e. using oil money to focus on sustainable management and conservation of natural resources rather than focus developing an oil economy - potentially in its death throes due to the global energy transition.
Guyana’s climate response mechanism will by far overshadow anything that
Norway can do. Norway’s welfare state is built on the profits from carbon production and its green image is built on the investments it has made in the Norwegian society and in global framework climate mechanisms. It involves innumerable intermediaries and impact is diluted. We can invest our oil and gas profits directly into our own low-carbon and green economy.
Since the first part of this series was published, the 2020 national budget was presented in Parliament. Given its timing, the COVID-19 Pandemic, and other factors, one cannot use this budget to judge how the Government of Guyana will resolve at a strategic level, the dilemma the country faces in maintaining its
“green” image while embracing the brown economy led by the oil and gas sector. There is a window, rapidly closing - but still open - for national conversations, decision-making, and leadership about the future path Guyana wants to take - whether Brown or Green - and how to put in place short and long term strategies and plans to make the chosen path a reality. May we choose wisely.
is a Natural
David Singh, PhD,
Resource Management Practitioner, Adjunct Faculty, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, School of Sustainability, Arizona State University.
Rory Fraser, PhD, is a Professor (Ret’d) of Forest Economics and Policy.
Timothy Laing, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in Economics, at Brighton Business School, University of Brighton and GREEN Institute, University of Guyana.