Guyana builds LCDS thrust in New York!

From popular actor Harrison Ford to Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Guyana last week continued to garner support for its Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) at several key events in New York.President Bharrat Jagdeo was among more than 100 world leaders invited to the special climate change summit convened by United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon and he continued plugging Guyana’s case, building on the country’s high international profile and leadership role in the global climate change battle.

The special Climate Change summit was held on Tuesday at the United Nations headquarters in New York, immediately prior to Wednesday’s opening of the two-day 64th UN General Assembly at the same venue.

“The climate change summit was excellent. I think for the first time, leaders themselves got involved in the issue of climate change (but) as for the General Assembly (GA), I think it was an anti-climax, after the special summit on climate change; it was just people going through the motion at the GA,” the Guyanese head-of-state told the Sunday Chronicle in an interview at the UN yesterday.

With the clock ticking towards this December’s climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, President Jagdeo reiterated his optimism that world leaders are much closer to ‘sealing the deal’ when they meet again in just under 80 days time.

His optimism is being fueled, in part, by the successful outcome of a crucial round-table meeting he co-chaired earlier in the week with the British Prime Minister.

Financing was one of the main issues discussed during the round-table meeting, and President Jagdeo said participants, having recognised that climate change is the pre-eminent geopolitical and economic issue of the 21st Century, acknowledged that it would take as much as, and maybe even more, US$100B to fight the impacts at this point in time. Read more....