The Caribbean Studies Association raises the Question: Could Guyana be a Catalyst for Advancing Oil and Gas and achieving a Green Economy?

​So many recent events have converged to jolt us all into the realization of the serious regional and global efforts to achieve climate resilience.  On June 5, Pakistan  acted  as the global host of  World Environment Day 2021  whose theme was  “Reimagine Recreate Restore”. It also launched the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. In essence it  means “bringing back plants and animals from the brink of extinction, from the peaks of mountains to the depths of the sea”. But it also includes the many small actions everyone can take, every day: growing trees, greening our cities, rewilding our gardens or cleaning up trash alongside rivers and coasts. In his address on this occasion Antonio Guterres,  UN Secretary General  affirmed that “restoring ecosystems carries substantial benefits for people.  For every dollar invested in restoration, at least seven to thirty dollars in returns for society can be expected. Restoration also creates jobs in rural areas where they are most needed”. 
 
Another global event, on June 6  was  World Oceans Day which featured launching the 43-country strong Global Oceans Alliance, led by the UK and including Guyana.  Its aim is to protect at least 30 percent of the global ocean in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and other affected  area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) by 2030. This is known as the “30 by 30” target. 
 
In the preceding week,  May31 - June 4, over 1000 scholars, policy makers and activists convened virtually at the 45th Annual Conference of the Caribbean  Studies Association (CSA)  to engage in discussions on a variety  of themes concerned with the environmental challenges facing the Caribbean and the  international system. The range of themes listed fully illustrate the scope of the challenges to be resolved.  It resulted in  the establishment of the CSA  Environment and Resilience Working Group to follow up on the recommendations from the panels that covered the  following: 
 
   ♣     Challenges and Opportunities: Caribbean and Climate Change
   ♣     Towards a Caribbean, Environmentally
   ♣     Responding to Climate Emergency
   ♣     Climate Change Caribbean Resistance and Resilience
   ♣     Emerging Research in Environmental Science
   ♣     Guyana Low Carbon/Green Economy and Oil Production
   ♣     Cuba: Living  Between the Hurricanes
   ♣     Engaging for Climate Change in the Caribbean
 
Glimpses of the Main Issues 
 
The CSA panels highlighted the problem that ecosystem loss is depriving the region of its carbon sinks, like forests and peatlands, at a time when humanity can least afford it.  One of the presentations placed into stark relief how global greenhouse gas emissions, have grown for three consecutive years and the planet is on pace for potentially catastrophic climate change. Yet the  Caribbean countries together with those of the South Pacific which comprise Small Island Development States (SIDS) contribute minimally, but are most severely affected and afflicted by Climate change. The current floods in Guyana, where the CSA 2021 was supposed to be held, were it not for the COVID-19 restrictions,  have severely affected more than  7,000 homes and  additional rains will undoubtedly intensify the woes across an unprecedented wide span of the country.  
 
The  CSA panel presentations  revealed a fascinating body  of research from the Caribbean and  among Caribbean agencies in collaboration with external partners. The major thrust of these studies included  the preservation, restoration and the management  of coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangroves that contribute toward reducing the negative impacts of climate. There was a strong view that while solar energy holds the most promise for the Caribbean region,  except for Trinidad and Tobago,  Caribbean economies are almost entirely dependent on diesel fuel and natural gas.  And with sun and wind in abundance,  geothermal and hydro power could free the islands almost entirely from fossil fuels. The  need to explore the increasing opportunities for renewable energy technologies was a recurring theme and so were the examples of using biofuels on energetic crops to provide electricity throughout  the Caribbean .  
 
A significant contribution from the cross section of panels on climate change was made by Dr. Ulric Trotz, recognized as 'a guru' whose vast experience and creative ideas provided a useful range of future prospects for the Region. These include the need for regional  collaboration in submitting proposals to the Global Environment Fund (GEF) and from the World Bank (IBRD and IDA).  Among the  areas in urgent need of attention is finding the formula  for resilient building efforts such as flood mitigation and hazard mitigation grants, important to confront the continuous plague of hurricanes in the region.  
 
One of the sessions raised an  interesting set of prospects on the horizon  as  the Caribbean prepares for the Climate Change Conference (COP 26) in Glasgow in November-December 2021. It is essential  to reinvigorate  the concerted Caribbean refrain  coordinated by the 5Cs   "1.5C to stay alive"  that  now resonates on the global agenda. Dire warnings reverberated  from the CSA panels that   to avoid catastrophic climate change, the highest priority must be to reduce CO2 pollution to zero at the earliest possible date. They echo the sombre results of the Zero Carbon Latin America and the Caribbean Climate Change  Report.  
 
Focus on Guyana 
 
However from the session,  Guyana Low Carbon/Green Economy and Oil Production chaired by Prof. Maya Trotz and headlined by Dr. Ulric Trotz, emerged the recommendation for the establishment of  a CSA Environment and Resilience Group, which convened its first consultation on the penultimate day of the Conference,  chaired by Dr. Nicholas Watts, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Studies.   It agreed that the group would act as a focal point  to explore the challenges raised at the climate change sessions, exchange good practices based on research and policy initiatives, create active platforms for collaboration in sourcing funding for Caribbean climate action projects,  promote strategies for sharing information, increasing private-public  stakeholders  and involving NGOs and youth leaders in advocacy for the ‘1.5C to stay alive’  agenda       
 

 
An interesting discussion  ensued  on the status of the Oil and Gas Industry in Guyana and its contribution to climate change.  Is it ethical to prime the pump as an essential feature of economic growth or should the oil deposits be left below the seabed?  There was  overwhelming support for a CSA-UG Forum  on the theme “Could Guyana be a Model for Climate Change: Aligning Oil and Gas with a Green Economy. Guyana - A model for Climate Change. In its December 2019 blog GOFAD raised the same question but left it generally unanswered: https://www.globalonefrontier.org/blog/guyana-could-be-a-model-for-climate-changealigning-oil-and-gas-with-a-green-economy
 
     
 
The idea of a Forum on this issue is timely and relevant for the Caribbean as a whole.  Among the base line information that exists is a 2016 Report resulting from wide scale consultations with experts  Climate Resilience Strategy and Action Plan for Guyana. It illustrates that the country  has already started to take action to build resilience to change impacts and to enhance capacities to adapt. Indeed, the thinking of the  commitment of the then Government of Guyana (GoG)  seemed to have been sustained. According to Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali, the commitment is to a green economy to sustain economic prosperity, environmental security and social well being. Therefore policies which support this vision enunciated in the 2016  report include the Low Carbon Development Strategy, the Second National Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the National Integrated Disaster Risk Management Plan, and the National Adaptation Strategy to Address Climate Change in the Agricultural Sector. It is also of interest that Guyana has  made progress in implementing adaptation and resilience building actions principally through interventions to the drainage, irrigation and sea defense systems to reduce the risks of flooding.  But obviously, as recent events have demonstrated these are insufficient to stem the tide of natural disasters. The need to accelerate  access to external finance to support the implementation of these actions  include the reactivating  of the  Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Norway, the European Union and Multilateral Arrangements. These are paralleled by a recommendation to establish Irworkrama in Guyana as an international center of excellence for biodiversity research, attracting experts, researchers, and graduate students. That the University of Guyana has an active University of Guyana Green Institute (UGGI) and a newly established Institute of Energy Diplomacy provides a useful anchor in collaboration with the leading CARICOM Institution, 5Cs.
 
Conclusions 
 
World Environment Day has amplified the big challenging picture. It comes at a time when  the emergence of COVID-19 has shown just how  disastrous the consequences of ecosystem loss can be;  how  by shrinking the area of natural habitat for animals for example, ideal conditions have been created  for pathogens – including coronaviruses – to spread. It also coincides with the release of the Report  from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which states that every three seconds, the world loses enough forest to cover a football pitch;  over the last century we have destroyed half of our wetlands; much as 50 per cent of our coral reefs have already been lost’;  and up to 90 per cent of coral reefs could be lost by 2050. In addition, the annual peak of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air has hit another milestone. It is  50% higher than when the industrial age began. The average rate of the increase is faster than ever. The World is in trouble. Yet from the vantage point of those who gathered at the CSA Conference to discuss climate action there is a trace of optimism in one of the questions posed  Could Guyana be a catalyst for advancing Oil and Gas  and achieving a Green Economy? Let the discussions commence! 
 
 
Eddie Greene