Guyana in World’s biggest offset deal.
The UK’s Independent is reporting on Guyana’s offer for the British to ‘Take over our rainforest‘.
[Guyana,] The former British colony, sandwiched between Venezuela and Brazil, is home to fewer than a million people but it is also home to an intact rainforest larger than England. In a dramatic offer, the government of Guyana has said it is willing to place its entire standing forest under the control of a British-led, international body in return for a bilateral deal with the UK that would secure development aid and the technical assistance needed to make the change to a green economy.
The deal would represent potentially the largest carbon offset ever undertaken, securing the vast carbon sinks of Guyana’s pristine forest in return for assisting the economic growth of South America’s poorest economy.
The world’s rainforests need protection and, sadly, it seems the only way to achieve that is to place a serious economic value on not tearing them up, or burning them down. The forthcoming climate talks in Bali will be taking up this issue of ‘avoided deforestation credits’ and I hope the outcome is such that the forests, and the indigenous people who dwell in them, are the real beneficiaries.
While there is acknowledged criticism of AD credits as, in and of themselves they do not physically remove surplus carbon from the atmosphere, nor do they stimulate the development of renewable energy. What they do well, and it’s of massive benefit if handled properly, is provide financial incentives for leaving the forests alone, thus preventing the release of an almost unimaginably vast amount of carbon. They provide urgently needed revenues to people who simply can’t afford to protect their forests from poachers. Outright theft of forests is a major contributor to atmospheric carbon. How AD credits will be priced, and how they will be valued remain to be seen but we need every possible resource in the global effort to save our planet from a meltdown. — DS
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