Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Offer of entire forest in climate fight stands -Jagdeo tells Commonwealth meet

From the Stabroek News:

Climate change reforms are increasingly skewed in the interest of the developed world and Commonwealth finance ministers have a chance to reshape this, President Bharrat Jagdeo said last night while also revealing that he had offered to deploy the country's entire rainforest in the global warming battle.

...While it was notable that the developed world was beginning to take action, he said that this must not lead to a focus that benefits only the developed world.

He noted the excessive focus on aviation in climate change which is already causing economic damage to the tourism and agriculture industries throughout the developing world including the Caribbean.

The Caribbean tourism industry has started to suffer from the developed world government policies which involve the imposition of punitive climate change taxes on aviation to discourage flying. "This is a cruel irony when for years the same governments encouraged Caribbean governments to urgently diversify into tourism to maximise the value from one of the region's most competitive advantages."

...He was critical of the "perverse incentives" offered to replant forests cut down as against rewarding standing forests. Tropical deforestation, he noted, contributes 18% of greenhouse gas emissions and a combined total of emission coming from the aviation industry since it began....MORE