Guyana joins Global Covenant for Climate and Energy
DPI, Guyana, Monday, June 17, 2019
Following a visit to Trinidad, City Mayor Ubraj Narine signed on to the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, registering Georgetown as one of the Caribbean cities under the Covenant for Climate and Energy.
Even though Guyana has the lowest deforestation rate at 0.048%, it is the aim of the Covenant for Climate and Energy in the Caribbean to help cities and towns avoid emitting nearly 2.8 billion tonnes of emissions by 2050.
Mayor of Georgetown, Ubraj Narine.
“I met the Foreign minister of Ghana [Shirley Botchway] in Trinidad, and I discussed with her, the twinning of Kumasi [Ghanaian City] and Georgetown,” Mayor Narine said.
A Memorandum of Understanding is yet to be signed between the two cities for the creation of green spaces and cutting carbon emissions.
The Mayor and City Council (M&CC) has also recently approved the project to create green spaces, as part of its continued efforts to beautify Georgetown to boost tourism. Previously the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) had invited the M&CC to work with them after the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) had agreed to provide $21M for the upgrading of green spaces in Georgetown.
The Ministry of Communities is yet to state which green spaces are priority for development. An approach is still to be made to the Ministry of Finance, which will then begin talks with the CDB for accessing the grant.
Once the grant is accessed, the projects identified as priority will be budgeted for.
The creation of green spaces in the city forms part of the efforts to satisfy the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 for Climate Action. This involves helping more vulnerable regions, such as land locked countries and island states, adapt to climate change, which must go hand in hand with efforts to integrate disaster risk measures into national strategies.
The mayor spoke of several projects undertaken in Constituency one through, self-help, in South Cummingsburg, Alberttown and surrounding areas. He also spoke of putting stricter measures in place for the maintenance of Georgetown having had the recent clean up campaign during the state visit of the Ghanaian President.
Images: Abike Barker