Guyana, Norway in talks to release over USD 100M in climate fund

The Governments of Guyana and Norway met in Oslo, Norway, agreeing to move their climate, forests, and sustainable development forward with speed and determination.

“I am delighted that we now have strong agreement with the Government of Guyana on a way forward for our partnership,” stated Minister of Climate and Environment of Norway, Ola Elvestuen, after the meeting.

According to a release from the Department of Public Information, the two governments noted the impressive results of Guyana in maintaining its extremely low rates of deforestation, and the administration’s strong push to maintain increasing parts of Guyana’s unique rainforests intact. They also noted good progress on forest governance issues, in accordance with the letter and spirit of their partnership.

“The partners also emphasized the importance of the Government of Guyana’s determination to move towards close to one hundred percent clean and renewable energy supply by 2025, and its desire in that context to embark on a strong push to increase the amounts of solar power in Guyana’s energy mix. On this basis, they agreed to move as expeditiously as possible to enable the deployment of Norway’s results-based contributions – both those currently held by the Inter-American Development Bank (USD 80M), and outstanding results-based payments of 300 million Norwegian kroners (USD 36M) – towards the realization of this ambition.” “We are enthusiastic about this agreement on the way forward for our partnership. This is important to Guyana and Norway, and will also provide an example to the world,” said Minister of State, Joseph Harmon.

Also present at the meetings were the Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, and the Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson, and Chairperson of the Guyana Forestry Commission, Jocelyn Dow. “We will now move quickly to trilateral discussions between The InterAmerican Development Bank, Guyana, and Norway on how best to deploy Norwegian funding to push our renewable power ambition forward,” Patterson stated.

Under the groundbreaking agreement first signed in 2009 between Guyana and Norway, this country was supposed to have received up to USD 250M over a period of five years to protect its forests. However, there were delays and difficulties in meeting some of the stringent verifiable checks that were introduced to ensure the forests are kept intact. In fact, Guyana reportedly lost USD 18M because of penalties.

Almost USD 80M has been sitting with the IDB, earmarked for the Amaila Falls hydro project.

It appears that it is this set of funds that Guyana wants released to pursue alternative energy projects.

Norway had agreed to extend the deal for Guyana to meet the benchmarks set. As of mid-2016, it was reported that Guyana collected more than USD 150M from the deal. Some of the monies were used in land demarcation for Amerindian villages. (Kaieteur News)