Black Immigrant Daily News

By Dr Lorraine Sobers

John Hess, CEO of Hess Corporation, speaking at the recently concluded International Energy Conference and Expo Guyana, explained to the audience that “Carbon credits provide financial incentives to preserve forests and biodiversity that are at risk to growing economic activities and demand for natural resources.”

The purchase of carbon credits by an oil producer within the jurisdiction of its operations is direct as any carbon emission offsetting arrangement can be. In December 2022, American-based Hess Corporation announced that their company will purchase US$750 million in carbon credits, over a 10-year period. Hess Corp is currently a consortium partner in the prolific oil-producing Stabroek Block, located offshore Guyana. These carbon credits are intended to help conserve Guyana’s lush rainforest which consume CO2 and release oxygen into the atmosphere. In the simplest terms, carbon credits are a mechanism to obtain waste disposal services for CO2.

I remember booking my first online flight, with my first credit card in hand, to travel to Trinidad while a student at Texas Tech University. The travel website offered the sale of carbon credits to offset emissions attributed to my 3000-mile flight from Lubbock, Texas to Piarco, Trinidad, with a stop or two along the way. “Would you like to purchase carbon credits to offset your trip?” the screen prompted, with the options, ‘yes’ or ‘no’. A similar question is posed to corporations and countries worldwide “Would you like to purchase carbon credits to offset your operations?”

The United Nations’ Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) program, established in 2007 under the Paris Agreement, facilitates carbon offsets for forest conservation a larger scale. The program provides guidance for the management of the forest sector to mitigate climate change. REDD+ and its formal mechanism to operate, Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART), are outlined in Article 5 of the agreement. A company can offset its carbon emissions by purchasing credits, these funds support projects that promote conservation and forestry.

Guyana’s forests are estimated to store almost 20 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide within 18 million hectares of rainforest, making Guyana a significant carbon sink on the planet. Recently, ART verified 33.47 millions tons of Carbon Credits to Guyana for the period 2016 to 2020; each carbon credit offsets one metric ton of carbon emissions. By purchasing these carbon credits, Hess Corp moves closer to achieving its objective of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and Guyana is able to conserve its forest and maintain one of the lowest deforestation rate in the world. This initiative to avoid deforestation is aligned to aim stated in the Paris Agreement to limit global average temperature increase to well below 2 ?C. Under this agreement Guyana and over 100 countries committed to end deforestation by 2030

Several speakers at Guyana’s International Energy Conference and Expo referred to Guyana’s strategy as a model for global sustainable development. Featured speaker, President Dr Irfaan Ali, said, “When we speak about development and transformation and the positioning of Guyana, it is not guesswork…It calls for big thinking.” President Ali hailed Guyana’s expanded Low Carbon Development Strategy 2030 (LCDS) as a document and approach that the world should emulate stating, “The LCDS is not an idea…The LCDS is a demonstration of a practical document and Guyana’s position is to make the LCDS a global model for sustainable development.”

At the forefront of this document is Guyana’s proposed “new ecosystems services economy” which currently focuses on “forest climate services” with future intentions to integrate biodiversity, water management, ocean, and marine resources into these services. The ‘big thinking’ that President Dr Ali refers to includes placing monetary value as carbon credits on natural resources that provide climate services to the planet. It is well known that under the LCDS, the government of Guyana also plans to use funds to support renewable energy and climate mitigation projects.

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo put forward the argument that Guyana was not only a model for sustainable development, but the country is also able to develop its resources with credibility because of its long time advocacy for climate action and its carbon negative status. Several Guyana government ministers and Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Minister of Energy, Stuart Young, pointed out that developed countries returned to coal fired power stations following the recent gas shortage resulting from the Ukraine-Russia conflict. However, these countries persist in asking developing countries not to develop their hydrocarbon resources, including natural gas, which is a much cleaner burning fuel than coal.

Each Guyanese government official at the conference reiterated Guyana’s credibility and right to produce hydrocarbon because 1) the country needs to develop its resources before peak oil demand, 2) the country needs funds to improve its infrastructure and adapt to climate change, and 3) the country has been doing more than its share for the planet as a carbon sink by maintaining its very large, pristine forest.

If developed countries are displeased with this perspective, they have only themselves to blame. The roll out of funding from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is painfully cumbersome and slow. Vice President Jagdeo stated that other Caribbean countries may be waiting for these promised funds, but Guyana cannot afford to wait. As I said previously, developing countries are footing the bill for climate change. Guyana has presented an innovative way to achieve its low carbon development objectives without sacrificing its progress. This solution may not be applicable to all CARICOM or Small Island Developing States but I hope this approach is a catalyst for at-risk nations to explore affordable funding options that meets national development objectives.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

The Fifth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5) in Doha, Qatar ended today with member states committing to measures to deliver on the Doha Programme of Action, a 10-year plan to put the world’s 46 most vulnerable countries back on track to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Qatar announced a financial package of $60 million: $10m to support the implementation of the Doha Programme of Action and $50 million to help build resilience in the LDCs.
Germany dedicated EUR200 million in new money in 2023 for financing for least developed countries.
Canada announced $59 million to deliver Vitamin supplements in 15 LDCs and ecosystem conservation in Burkina Faso.
The EU Commission announced cooperation agreements advancing sustainable investments in Africa totalling more than EUR130 million of investment.
Finland announced an annual event called the United Nations LDC Future Forum in Helsinki, with the Office of the UN High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States – OHRLLS -, to ensure the latest thinking and research is being put to work to ensure progress on the most vulnerable states.
The Green Climate Fund announced a new project to give $80 million in equity to offer green guarantees to business in LDCs and bring down the cost of capital.
The United Nations World Tourism Organisation, announced a new EUR10 million Tourism for Development Fund for LDCs, supported by TUI Care Foundation, that will invest by 2030 to support sustainable tourism in LDCs as a key driver of development.
The government of Kazakhstan pledged $50,000 to continue their work supporting the most vulnerable member states of the United Nations.
The government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced a major new loan package for the Least Developed Countries.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

The head of the Organization of American States made almost three dozen work trips with a female staffer with whom he maintained a long-running intimate relationship, according to travel records uncovered by The Associated Press.

The revelations come as an external probe is expected to wrap up this month looking into whether OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro’s romance with the Mexican staffer two decades his junior violated the Washington-based group’s ethics code.

The trips together, all but one between July 2018 and December 2019, included a four-day visit to Oxford, England to deliver a talk on Latin America, a newspaper publishers’ conference in the historic Colombian city of Cartagena and a quick jaunt to Miami to receivethe “Executive Mastermind Latino” award.

Listings of the trips were found in publicly available reports the secretary general files periodically with the OAS’ permanent council and which are buried deep in the organization’s website.

It’s not clear how much the travel cost the OAS, which has been struggling with a deep budget crunch for years. But at least 21 of the 34 trips were paid in part or full by the organization, with payment for the remainder covered by organizers of events the twoattended or not specified. In all, the couple travelled 15 times together without any other OAS staffer listed as present, according to the records.

Almagro, through a spokesman, declined an AP request for an interview and didn’t explain why the two made so many work trips together.

“No OAS rules were violated at any time due to the measures he and his team took to ensure all regulations were complied with,” spokesman Gonzalo Espariz said in a written statement.

The AP last year was the first to report that the OAS was investigating the long-running office romance between Almagro and the staffer, which had been something of an open secret inside the peace and democracy-building organization made up of 34 westernhemisphere governments.

The report led the Biden administration, the biggest donor to the OAS, to call for an external investigation into possible misconduct. A few weeks later, the OAS’ Permanent Council hired a Washington law firm, Miller & Chevalier Chartered, to carry out the probe and deliver its findings by the end of March.

Almagro, 59, was quick to welcome the oversight even while steadfastly denying he had broken any rules. He said he wasn’t the woman’s supervisor, never benefitted her in any way and said their long-running relationship was consensual.

“I definitely want to confirm, reconfirm and super-confirm that this relationship existed” for three years, Almagro said in November. “None of this changes my vision of the institution, its operations and the responsibility we have with respect to them.”

In online bios as well as in photos with Almagro as recently as a year ago, some of them posted to the OAS’ social media accounts, the woman is described as an “adviser” or sometimes “head adviser” to the secretary general. The woman, who is not being named at the request of the OAS, has been on unpaid leave at her request since June, according to the OAS. She did not respond to AP requests for comment.

At issue are OAS ethics guidelines that bar staff members from having intimate relationships with colleagues they supervise or in a way that interferes “with the performance of their duties or to disadvantage others in the workplace.”

Details on Almagro’s extensive travel are contained in reports the secretary general was asked to file quarterly with the OAS’ Permanent Council as part of a savings and transparency initiative approved by regional governments in 2016.

Almagro didn’t appear to submit any reports in 2020 and 2021 — a period that coincided with the worst of the COVID pandemic, when travel throughout the world was largely suspended.

But the couple — whose relationship Almagro says has since ended — appear to have made their last trip together in February 2022 to New Haven, Connecticut, for a Latin American leadership event at Yale University.

Espariz declined to explain why Almagro did not file travel reports from 2020 and 2021, and whether there were additional trips with the woman.

The U.S., which has contributed about half of the organization’s $100 million in funding in 2022, declined to comment on the trips. But the Biden administration has repeatedly said it takes allegations of ethics violations at the OAS seriously and said it supports a fair, impartial review of the facts.

Almagro was elected to head the OAS in 2015 after serving as foreign minister in Uruguay’s leftist government. Once installed, he quickly made common cause with the U.S. in opposing Cuba and Venezuela’s socialist government, once even echoing President DonaldJ. Trump’s line that he wouldn’t rule out using military force to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Almagro was re-elected with the support of 23 of 34 member states, including the U.S., in 2020, overcoming questions about his leadership style that have dogged his tenure.

But more recently, as the left has regained power across Latin America, calls for his removal have been growing louder.

A few weeks after the AP reported on the romance between Almagro and the staffer, in October 2022, members of the so-called Puebla Group in Latin America issued a statement calling for his removal.

Signed by former presidents and political leaders from 16 countries, the document criticized his “amoral” conduct, including the firing of the leader of the human rights watchdog, and his intervention following messy elections in Bolivia that led to President EvoMorales’ resignation. — The Associated Press

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Despite global pressures such as high inflation, the war in Ukraine, the ensuing energy crisis, and an impending economic recession, the outlook for Caribbean travel and tourism is favorable, according to the Barbados-based Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO).

Delivering the region’s 2022 “Tourism Performance and Outlook Report” in Bridgetown today, Neil Walters, Acting Secretary General of the CTO, confirmed that the Caribbean had one of the quickest recovery rates globally in 2022, with 28.3 million registered tourist visits in 2022. This represents 88.6 percent of the visitors who arrived in 2019, which served as the baseline year for typical tourism activity before the pandemic.

He reported that international travel is expected to contribute to the region’s substantial gains already registered thanks to the robust United States market, which continues to drive the region’s recovery.

There was an estimated 28.1 percent increase in visitors coming from the U.S. market in 2022. At the end of the year, 14.6 million American tourists visited the region, 3.2 million more than the 11.4 million in 2021.

Arrivals from the European market increased by 81 percent in 2022 when compared to 2021. The 5.2 million tourists from this market were almost double the 2.8 million in 2021. This represented 18.3 percent of all arrivals in 2022.

Due to travel restrictions in early 2022, the Canadian market has recovered more slowly at 60 percent, while the lack of availability of intra-regional airlift has negatively impacted regional connectivity.

“Nearly 90 percent of the region’s travel demand for 2019 has already been recovered,” reported Walters, with destinations such as Cura?ao, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, St. Maarten, Turks and Caicos, and the U.S. Virgin Islands already surpassing their pre-pandemic levels.

Caribbean destinations can expect this recovery to continue into 2023, albeit at a slower rate, Walters explained, predicting that growth will be uneven among the destinations, with additional countries and territories exceeding their 2019 levels.

According to STR, the average daily rate at hotels increased by 21.7 percent to US$290.60 in 2022. The revenue per available room surged by 66.4 percent to $176.46, and the number of available rooms (up 4.4 percent) as well as room income (up 73.6 percent) increased. After two challenging years for the aviation industry, global air passenger traffic recovered significantly in 2022.

It is estimated that visitors to the Caribbean region spent between $36.5 and $37.5 billion in 2022, an increase of 70 to 75 percent compared to 2021.

It is expected that overall arrivals to the region will increase by between 10 and 15 percent when compared to 2022, with 31.2 to 32.6 million tourists visiting the region this year. The cruise industry is also anticipated to continue recovering and expanding to meet increasing demand, with 32 to 33 million cruise passenger visits expected – a five to 10 percent increase over the pre-COVID baseline figure.

Chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Organization’s Council of Ministers and Commissioners of Tourism, Kenneth Bryan, who also serves as the Cayman Islands’ Minister of Tourism and Transport, summarized that in the face of the devastating blows delivered by the pandemic, “as a region, we have responded with hope, strength and the determination to prevail.”

Minister Bryan reiterated that great strides have been made in Caribbean tourism, a clear indication that the sector is bouncing back, and hopes are high that the robust pace of recovery will continue into 2023 and beyond. “So, although we have not yet surpassed 2019’s numbers across the board in every jurisdiction, the needle is certainly moving in the right direction,” he commented.

The chairman envisioned 2023 as a period of growth and development for the CTO, and he and his team were laser-focused on growing the membership, including countries, territories as well as allied partners. “It is also my intention to strengthen the relationships with other organizations, such as the United Nations World Travel Organization, the World Travel and Tourism Council, and even the Central American Tourism Promotion Agency (CATA), to foster greater collaboration,” said Minister Bryan. Consideration is being given to the restructuring of the organization and reforming its strategic vision and direction for the next five years, which includes the appointment of a new Secretary-General, he confirmed.

Minister Bryan announced the return of CTO’s Caribbean Week in New York, to be held in “The Big Apple,” from June 5 to 8 this year, and disclosed that his team was committed to addressing the nagging issue of air connectivity, a complex one that has been exacerbated by the reevaluation of airline business structures and the global pilot shortage. “It would be illogical for me to promise a solution to this issue during my tenure as chairman. But what I can and will commit to is getting the players around the table to forensically examine what we need to do as a unified region to improve this scenario and start the ball rolling towards the solution.”

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Doctors Without Borders announced Wednesday that it was forced to temporarily close its hospital in Cite Soleil given a sharp rise in gang violence that has left dozens dead in recent weeks.

The slum — one of the largest in the capital of Port-au-Prince — has been the site of repeated clashes between gangs.

“We are looking at a war scene just meters from our hospital,” said Vincent Harris, the aid group’s adviser.

Officials noted that large numbers of stray bullets have hit the hospital compound, and that it’s nearly impossible for the sick and injured to reach the institution for care.

The organization added that in recent days, staff members at another nearby hospital have admitted up to 10 times the usual number of people with gunshot wounds.

Human rights activists have said that from Feb. 24 to March 4, more than 60 people have been killed in one area of the capital alone, with dozens of others kidnapped.

Gangs continue to fight over more territory and are wielding more power since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry has repeatedly asked the international community for the eployment of foreign troops, a request that has gone unanswered since October.

Instead, various countries have imposed sanctions and have sent military equipment to help Haiti’s National Police, which is severely under-resourced and understaffed. More than a dozen police officers have been killed so far this year.

On Monday, Maarten Boute, the chairman of Digicel in Haiti, tweeted that the situation has grown “increasingly desperate” in Port-au-Prince.

“Armed gangs now roam freely across the entire capital city,” he wrote. “Nobody is safe. Desperation is kicking in. We need help!”

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