– As global warming continues to accelerate
January 21, 2020
The Office of Climate Change (OCC) with support from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), this morning, opened a four-day workshop which seeks to revise and re-submit Guyana’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
The purpose of the Capacity Building Workshop is to introduce participants to the elements and requirements for the NDCs update in keeping with the Enhanced Transparency Framework of the Paris Agreement Work Programme.
This is in keeping with the global call for Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement to increase their climate change mitigation ambitions. The aim is to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
Head of the OCC, Mrs. Janelle Christian, in her remarks, said the first NDC was started in 2014 and concluded and submitted in 2015, in time for the Paris Agreement. However, since then, Guyana has elaborated several new national development priorities and strategies including the Green State Development Strategy (GSDS), and has started petroleum production.
“As part of the revision of our NDCs, which is in keeping with the commitment for all countries to increase our ambitions by 2020, we will now be including additional sectors… Guyana will be including the agricultural and transport sectors since agriculture is also a contributor to the greenhouse gases,” she said.
FAO Resident Representative in Guyana, Ms. Gillian Smith, in her remarks, said the FAO is pleased to collaborate with the OCC on this important work that Guyana is doing to develop its next NDC.
Meanwhile, Lead Facilitator of the Workshop, Mr. Leon Charles, in his remarks, said the preparation and communication of NDCs is a mandatory, legally binding obligation under the Paris Agreement and Guyana is leading the way in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) region in the inclusive approach it is taking to develop its NDCs.
“I am pleased to note that your NDC is not being developed in a vacuum but comes as a part of climate change policy and legislative development that you have undertaken over the last few years… ” he said.
