Roving Periscope: “What gives you the right to lecture us,” an angry Guyana President rips BBC apart

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: Much water has flown across the oceans and seas of the planet since colonialism ended with the 1997 British withdrawal from its last colony, Hong Kong. But the West, unable to shed its hangover and still riding its dead high horse, continues to treat the Third World with contempt.

The holier-than-thou and self-supremacist Western media, including the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), are no exception to this colonial hangover when it comes to dishing out gyan to the former colonies. The West exploited the Third World to the hilt, pauperized them for its prosperity and development, and now wants the former colonies to make sacrifices and control carbon emissions—so that the West continues to enjoy siesta.

But the former Western colonies are in no mood to tolerate their ‘democratic nonsense.’ In the most recent cases, the West—Germany, the US, and even the UN that they fund—are lecturing India in the Arvind Kejriwal arrest case, and New Delhi had to lodge strong protests against their unwarranted ‘interference’ in the country’s internal affairs.

Now comes the news from another former British colony in South America where its president had to snub the BBC interviewer, the media reported on Saturday.

“What gives you the right to lecture us,” an angry Guyanese President Irfan Ali asked BBC reporter Stephen Sackur who had questioned him on the country’s carbon emission rates as it planned to extract oil and gas along its coast.

President Ali’s all-out attack on “Western hypocrisy” on carbon emissions has gone viral.

In a viral interview clip, the Guyanese President can be seen interrupting the questioner, and cross-questioning him on whether he had the “right to lecture on climate change” and if he was in the “pockets of those who destroyed the environment through the industrial revolution and are now lecturing us.”

President Ali countered the reporter’s query that Guyana’s extraction of oil and gas will lead to more than two billion metric tonnes of carbon emissions from its coast, saying, “Do you know that Guyana has a forest cover that is the size of England and Scotland combined? A forest that stores 19.5 Gigatons of carbon, a forest that we have kept alive.”

On this, the interviewer questioned him about whether that would give Guyana the right to extract oil and gas and release emissions.
The President said, “Does that give you the right to lecture us on climate change? I will lecture you on climate change because we have kept this forest alive. The store’s 19.5 gigatons 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 the people of Guyana has kept alive.”

“Guess what? We have the lowest deforestation rate in the world. And guess what? Even with our greatest exploration of the oil and gas resources we have now, we will still be, net zero. Guyana will still be net 0 with all our exploration,” he added.

Making a strong statement on alleged Western hypocrisy, the Guyana President said that those who had destroyed the environment are now questioning his country.

“I am just not finished yet because this is a hypocrisy that exists in the world. The world, in the last 50 years has lost 65 percent of all its biodiversity. We have kept our biodiversity. Are you valuing it? Are you ready to pay for it? When is the developed world going to pay for it or are you in their pockets?” the Guyanese President said.

“Are you in the pockets of those who have damaged the environment? Are you in the pockets? Are you and your system in the pockets of those who destroyed the environment through the Industrial Revolution and are now lecturing us? Are you paid by them?” he asked.

Many developing countries have raised this issue, calling on the West to drastically reduce its carbon footprint.

In 2023, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged that rich nations should completely reduce their carbon footprint “well before” 2050 and called on the world to deliver a concrete outcome on finance to help developing and poor nations combat climate change.

Addressing a session on “Transforming Climate Finance” at COP28, PM Modi said India expects concrete and real progress on the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), a fresh post-2025 global climate finance goal.

“Developed countries should completely reduce their carbon footprint well before 2050,” the PM added.