By Vishani Ragobeer in Belém, Brazil
Several world leaders, including Guyana’s President Dr. Irfaan Ali, were part of a COP30 roundtable discussion on forests and oceans on Thursday afternoon, and the Guyanese Head of State urged his colleagues to adopt proven forest-saving initiatives.
The roundtable was part of the engagements held on Thursday for the World Leaders Climate Action Summit, part of this year’s United Nations climate talks. This year, the Conference of Parties (COP) is being held in Belém, Brazil, and it has been deemed by many as the “rainforest COP.”
For President Ali, the tag shouldn’t only be a nod to the event being surrounded by Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest. Instead, he said, the rainforest COP must galvanize leaders and all stakeholders to meaningfully embrace forest-saving actions, including those that incentivize countries like Guyana and Brazil to protect their vast swathes of trees.
“Based on our experience, after three decades of debate, the solutions are known. We have the models from Guyana, Brazil, and many other forest countries… we must scale them and make them work,” President Ali urged his colleagues.
Forest-saving plans have been promoted by Guyana for years, and in 2009, then-Guyanese President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo and Norway’s Minister of Environment, Erik Solheim, inked a deal which saw US$250 million come to Guyana in exchange for conserving its vast rainforest. It was one of the world’s first forest-saving initiatives.
More than 15 years later, the strategy is the foundation of Guyana’s developmental efforts- demonstrating the country’s focus on environmental stewardship and sustainable development even as it balances nascent oil and gas production. It has also been expanded, and again, Guyana leads the way with its efforts to earn from standing forests, now extended to the sale of jurisdictional-scale carbon credits and, more recently, protecting biodiversity.
“We believe (forests) are more than carbon. They are biodiversity, water, and culture,” President Ali told his colleagues.
And Guyana isn’t the only country in this neck of the woods focused on forests. Host country Brazil, the home of more than half of the Amazon Rainforest, has called on countries, companies, and individuals to better value these trees.
In Belém earlier Thursday, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva launched the Tropical Forests Forever Fund (TFFF). This is a new financing tool to fund the maintenance of protected forests. President Ali said Guyana will participate in Brazil’s “bold and fair” TFFF.
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