Guyanese President picks on BBC for ‘climate hypocrisy’

Guyanese President Irfaan Ali in an interview with BBC reporter Stephen Shakur hit back at the latter for questioning Guyana’s plans for its newly discovered oil reserves, saying it might cause more damage to global climate. Looks like Hardtalk has a harder stick to deal with now.

This is when the interview took a heated turn and a video clip of that moment went viral. It shows Ali interrupting the journalist to defend the government’s management of the sector and saying, “I would lecture you on climate change”.

See the full video here on this YouTube Channel.

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Shakur was talking about the estimated carbon emissions that oil and gas extraction from Guyana’s coast would generate in future.

Guyanese President stops BBC reporter

Almost immediately, the president says, “Let me stop you right there,” and adds, “Do you know that Guyana has a forest forever that is the size of England and Scotland combined? A forest that stores 19.5 gigatonnes of carbon? A forest that we have kept alive.” At this point, Shakur interrupts and asks, “Does that give you the right to release all of this carbon?”

Take a look at the entire interview here:

I am going to lecture you on climate change

Irfaan Ali

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The president did not stop there. He told the BBC, “Does it give you the right to lecture us on climate change? I am going to lecture you on climate change because we have kept this forest alive that stores 19.5 gigatonnes of carbon that you enjoy, that the world enjoys, that you don’t pay us for, that you don’t value, that you don’t see a value in, that people of Guyana has kept alive.”