voice-over: this is bbc news. we will have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur and today i'm on the road — and on the water — in guyana, south america, a country of extraordinary ecosystems and of vast resource potential. the question is, which comes first? guyana has always been resource—rich. for decades, the rush was for gold. now it's for oil. guyana is fast becoming a petrostate, the fastest growing economy in the world. but new wealth has

stoked old tensions. neighbouring socialist venezuela claims a vast chunk of guyanese territory. the stakes are suddenly very high. we shall never surrender an inch of our territory. heavily forested guyana has always been a carbon sink. now, with the oil and gas flowing, some call it a carbon bomb. fragile ecosystems are vulnerable to possible oil spills and rising sea levels. guyana is making choices which will have global impact. will they be wise ones? it's republic day in georgetown, guyana's capital. party time for the country's 800,000 people. the ministry of natural

resources is on the road. i want to hear you make some noise. the stage is set here for transformational change, a resource—driven economic boom that will spread unprecedented wealth through the generations. in past decades, guyana's dominant commodity was gold, found deep in the forested interior. to get to the gold mines, you need to take a pretty rough—and—ready track. it gives you some idea how remote these mines are. i mean, the truth is that there are gold deposits all around here, but finding them is one thing. you've then got to clear away the forest. you've got to dig a track to make them accessible. frankly, digging for gold around here is a pretty difficult operation.

the alphonso family own a dozen mining concessions. they dig for treasure in the dirt. all this is gold but they're in stone. they're going to smelt it out. so you end up with what? a gold bar. pure gold bar. this is an industry with a tarnished reputation. gold mining has left a legacy of deforestation and mercury pollution. but the alphonsos now invite scrutiny from conservationists. they insist they are sustainable miners. you don't have to plant no forest. you don't have to plant nothing. if i show you up there, that we clean it like here and now you go there, you can pass through the bush. yeah, but hang on a minute. this is a huge scar on the landscape. and also you use mercury, right, at the end of this process 7 yes. and what happens to all the mercury, which is poisonous? no, it doesn't mark, it doesn't show. we use everything inside here. contain it.

from sifting the dirt to final smelting, this 6oz bar of gold represents a week's work forjust one mining crew. it's a payday of 12,000 us dollars. so this is pretty much pure gold? pure gold. guyana's gold rush has meant deforestation, and it has left, at least for a while, ugly scars. but now guyana is preoccupied with a very different kind of resource windfall — oil and gas. and that promises to be transformational. almost 200km off the coast, they found a fossil fuel reserve that will yield 11 billion barrels of oil. exxon�*s drilling vessels are already pumping 600,000 barrels a day. soon that'll be over a million.

guyana is becoming a premier league petrostate. what was the site of an old sawmill and sugar plantation on the edge of georgetown is now a vast offshore oil and gas supply base. exxon is the dominant client for base manager rondell wade. rondell, do you think that what we are seeing, the vast expansion of this oil and gas production and everything that goes with it, is truly benefiting the guyanese people? yes, it is. here at gysbi, we have 96% local employees. and when you look at the other companies that operate within this industry, you see a lot of local guyanese people. and i'm proud of that fact. how different is this guyana, symbolised by the site we're in right now, how different is it from the guyana you grew up in? very different from the guyana i grew up in. the guyana i grew up in was dominated by the rice industry and the sugar industry, along with, like, the bauxite and gold mining industry.

and the guyana i'm growing up in now is dominated by the oil and gas industry. exxon signed the first exploration and production agreement with guyana's government eight years ago. now they're sponsoring guyana's oil and gas expo, as the industry expands. businesses from the us to china are flocking here for a piece of the action. guyana's government is intensely aware of the need to include its own people in the oil boom. a local female—led startup has just been awarded two plots in the biggest offshore field. guyanese are looking at us to see what happens in the oil industry, especially as we are very much into corporate social responsibility. and that was our background. so they're looking and they're asking us about generational wealth, which is what we're interested in building here in guyana. you talk a great deal about your commitment to social and economic responsibility.

don't you also think about your responsibility to the planet? after all, you are now pushing ahead with exploring and producing oil and gas, more fossil fuels, at a time when the world has made its first international commitment to transition away from fossil fuels, to save the planet. for me, it makes absolute sense that we exploit our resources to build and develop our country. no—one else is going to do it, and i don't think we should expect anyone else to do it. my challenge would be that the western countries, or the other countries that are developed, they have a responsibility to stop doing what they are doing so that we can do what we are doing, you know, and that evens things up. you think it's guyana's turn? it's absolutely guyana's turn. and i say that unashamedly, unabashedly. it is our time and we deserve to be developed. smith creek, in the remote north—west of guyana hardly looks like it's in the world's fastest growing economy.

from here, it takes almost two hours of canoeing to find drinkable water. this is home to indigenous warao people, most of whom subsist on farming and fishing. what kind of fish have you got today? taras and basha. is it good? yes. it's saturday morning, fish market day. pretty busy around here. and being in this place makes you realise just how reliant these communities are on the produce of the local rivers and the sea. nearby shell beach is a globally significant ecosystem. guyana's offshore oil is being pumped from the seabed far beyond this horizon. but were there to be a spill, here is where it would have a devastating impact. and that is a 24/7 concern for conservationist annette arjoon.

if there were a major oil spill, the four species of marine turtles that nest in the 100km stretch of shell beach would have no nesting habitat. so, apart from the oil polluting them in the water, their nesting beach would have been decimated. so they'll have no place to go and lay their eggs. and for hatchlings to even emerge. right behind the beach, you have a very massive mangrove ecosystem, that the birds depend on the crustaceans in that forest for their existence. so it will also decimate the crab population as well as the bird population. and of course the mangroves itself sequester five times more carbon than any other forest type. so you'd have also decimated a massive carbon sink as well, in the process. do you think that, in the end, guyana has made the wrong choice in pushing ahead with what is going to be a massive and decades—long investment in oil and gas offshore?

i have worked here for over three decades and i've seen extreme poverty for three decades. in terms of the government pursuing an oil and gas sector and the revenues from that coming back into these vulnerable and impoverished communities, i think that it's a good thing, but a thing that needs to be done in an environmentally responsible way. there is an obvious irony to guyana's new status as a major oil producer. it is also one of the countries most vulnerable to the potentially disastrous rise in sea levels expected if the world continues to burn fossil fuels. most guyanese people live in the coastal plain, much of which is two metres below sea level. sea walls and ageing dutch drainage systems keep the waves at bay for now. but does extracting more fossil

fuels make sense for guyana? i'm not convinced of that. it seems as if our authorities, the powers that be, politically and otherwise, are, like, oblivious to these facts. are oblivious to guyana and that the caribbean, are one of the most vulnerable places on the whole wide world and on planet earth. but do you think... in terms of climate change, stephen. and yet we are ploughing ahead with what is going to be a massive impact, negatively, against climate change in the world. so what's your alternative suggestion? the government walks away from tens of billions of dollars of income that comes with oil production, simply doesn't allow any of that oil and gas to be exploited ? well, i think there's a spectrum of opinion on that. so at one end of the spectrum, you have those that say leave the oil in the ground. and then at the other end of that spectrum, you have people in guyana

who are vociferously saying renegotiate the contract, put in place the ringfencing. let us get the best deal we can get out of these resources instead of the worst deal. and let the people of guyana and civil society have a real stake and a say in how this is to be done. otherwise, i believe it's doomsday. the us oil giant exxon remains the key player in guyana's oil boom. it negotiated a sweet deal with the previous government in georgetown, a generous revenue share, low royalties, a massive offset of costs. for exxon�*s bosses, guyana is great business. i think it's favourable to both parties. it's a balanced agreement. remember, when we signed the agreements here,

there was still a lot of risk very early in the exploration of this basin. and indeed, you know, risks are notjust geological risks when you operate in a new and developing country or in different parts of the world. so all of that needs to be taken into account. sure. but you only pay, correct me if i'm wrong, 2% royalties in this country. the norm in many other countries where you exploit fossilfuels is 10%. and the cost—sharing agreement with guyana means you can claim literally billions and billions of dollars of cost before you even get to the profit sharing. that kind of deal, according to global witness, an anti—corruption organisation, is robbing guyana of tens of billions of dollars. oh, no, it's not robbing the country. what it's doing is delivering the investment that the country is looking for, in a frontier development location, where there remains high risk. it's competing for capital globally. we take all of the exploration risk up front.

we invest all the dollars up front, and then the country benefits notjust by the royalty, but also by the profit share. it's a profit—sharing agreement. if one looks at the big picture, greenpeace and many other environmental activists have made one thing very plain. they say if the world is to have any chance of avoiding the most damaging impacts of global heating, then most of the oil and gas yet to be exploited has to be left in the ground. what we see is a world that still needs dependable, secure energy supply. and, in our mind, this is an "and" equation. we can't fail in our duty to deliver what modern society needs. we need to deliver that, but we can do it while reducing emissions. the emissions from our operations here will be 30% lower intensity than from the rest of our upstream operation. but by the time you have finished, if you indeed complete the complete extraction of oil and gas

from offshore, that will be at least two billion tons of extra carbon emissions that you will have put into the planetary atmosphere. with the projects and the developments that we're doing here, investing in the latest technology, lower emission intensity developments, we're reducing the overall emissions footprint of operations today. and as a corporation, we're committed to the pathway to net zero by 2050. we're on it. it's a pathway. you don't get there overnight. and we can't meet the needs of society today if we just turn the lights off. this year, republic day in guyana came with an air of defiance. we shall never surrender an inch of our territory or cede national sovereignty. neighbouring venezuela

is pushing on and offshore claims over essequibo, a vast chunk of guyana's territory. caracas has issued threats and demanded that exxon cease its operations. it is an unequal standoff. guyana hasjust1i,000 men and women in its security forces. venezuela has a military of at least 125,000. guyanese president irfaan ali's defiance relies heavily on the support of powerful allies, most notably in washington. the current guyana—venezuela border was demarcated in 1899. it is long, it's in remote territory, and until now it's been the focus of little attention. right now i am on the disputed border between guyana and venezuela. it runs right across this barima river. you can see the venezuelan border outpost on the bank behind me.

it is quiet and it's calm here right now. but further along the disputed border, there are reports that venezuela has deployed new forces and is building a new military outpost. guyana's president, irfaan ali, is adamant essequibo is, and will remain, guyanese. we recognise that we are dealing with a neighbour that is aggressive, that has made certain threats, and we are investing in our military. we're investing in the technology of our military. we're investing in infrastructure. but, more than that, we have aligned ourselves with countries and a region that is on the side of guyana. the caricom, as a region, has issued a statement in support of guyana's sovereignty. the us has issued a statement in support of guyana's sovereignty. the uk has issued a statement

in support of guyana's sovereignty. france has issued a statement in support of guyana's sovereignty. canada. so we are working on the basis of an international coalition that would not allow this region to be destabilised by any action by venezuela to overrun our territorial integrity, or our borders. but have you seen the satellite imagery which shows that armoured vehicles have gathered close to the border with essequibo on the venezuelan side, that they have armed coastal vessels, again, gathered close to your waters? well, what i'm saying is that we have made it very clear that if there is any breach in our territorial space, if there is any action by anyone to destabilise our country and to invade in any way, shape or form, that we will call upon every force and every friend to help us and to work with us to protect our territorial integrity.

perhaps the president's greatest challenge will be persuading his own people that they'll benefit from the oil boom. 40% of the population still lives in poverty. even in the capital, some neighbourhoods reek of neglect and deprivation. this is a divided society where ethnicity often drives political conflict, where the main parties accuse each other of corruption and cronyism. aubrey norton, leader of the opposition people's national congress, took me to the sophia neighbourhood, one of his party's strongholds. i have argued that the government has not produced any policies or programmes to deal with poverty and that the cost of living is high. and even though we recommended measures to deal with the high

cost of living, the government has not taken action on high costs of living or poverty. what you have is oil resources, that we describe as going to the elite, their family, theirfriends and their favourite. if we look at the shacks, the squatter cabins behind you right now, it is obvious there are many people in this country living without proper sanitation, clean water. and this in a country where very soon the national income per capita is going to be an extraordinary $60,000 a year. so the inequality is going to get more and more obvious. how close to a dangerous level of anger and instability is that going to take guyana? the problem is poverty is affecting all ethnic groups. and so it is dangerous, but it also has the potential to unite, if it is dealt with properly. if one accepts that the lower class in this society is not getting a good deal

and we carve policies and programmes and projects to give them a good deal, in that regard, it will constitute and a bridging of the gap and it will help with the division. if, however, we continue to accentuate poverty, then it will destabilise the society. in emerging economies, a sudden and massive injection of commodity—derived riches has often proved to be a curse. will guyana be different? and how will the world judge guyana's decision to put fossil fuel extraction before decarbonisation? over the next decade, two decades, it is expected that there will be $150 billion worth of oil and gas extracted off your coast. it's an extraordinary figure. but think of it in practical terms.

that means, according to many experts, more than two billion tons of carbon emissions will come from your seabed, from those reserves, and be released into the atmosphere. i don't know if you, as a head of state, went to the cop in dubai... let me stop you right there. 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. a forest we have kept alive. does that give you the right, does that give you the right to release all of this carbon? does that 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 gigatons of carbon that you enjoy, that the world enjoy, that you don't pay us for, that you don't value. that you don't see a value in, that the people of ghana

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 resource we have now, we will still be net zero. guyana will still be net zero. isn't there a cynicism here in georgetown, best expressed by your vice president, who said recently, because there is this climate change imperative to decarbonise, our policy is to get as much oil out of the ground as quickly as possible. now, he said that's harsh for those who think that you should be environmentally sound, but that is the reality of it. those were very honest words from your vice president. and that is what we are, honest. we are practical. so you're rushing, rushing to get this oil out before any deal is done, to quote dubai cop, to transition away from oil and gas. you can say we are rushing, but we are very practical. we have this natural resource and we are going to aggressively pursue this natural resource because we have to develop our country.

we are committed to the development of this region. we have to create the opportunity for our people because no—one is bringing that for us. a decade ago, guyana was a south american backwater, largely ignored. now it's a world energy player, with powerful friends and enemies. the country is on a course brimming with both opportunity and peril, and there is no going back. hello. the weather is going to throw just about everything at us over the next couple of days. certainly for wednesday — lots of heavy thundery downpours, albeit with some spells of sunshine in between,

also quite windy out there. all driven by low pressure centred to the west of the uk. rain and hill snow pushing northwards across scotland. some really heavy rain for a time across eastern counties of northern ireland. that will take a while to clear. and then for england and wales, yes, there will be some spells of sunshine, but also some heavy, thundery downpours with hail thrown in for good measure, some sunny spells in between. pretty windy, particularly in the south, but also up towards the north of scotland and temperatures north to south between seven and 11, maybe 12 degrees celsius in parts of eastern england. now through wednesday night, we will see further showers or longer spells of rain. this clump of wet weather drifting across southern england into the midlands. if that gets far enough, west into wales, well over high

ground, that could give a little bit of snow because it will be quite cold to take us into thursday morning. although probably too windy for most places to see a frost. and then into thursday, while this area of low pressure firmly in charge. this low has been named by the spanish weather service. it's been named storm nelson because of the impacts it is going to have in spain, but pretty close to us on thursday. close enough to give some very strong winds, gales around coasts in the south and the southwest. but windy weather even further north across england and wales, very strong winds even inland. some outbreaks of rain — northern scotland perhaps seeing the best of the dry weather, but they'll even here be some showers. and temperatures around nine, ten or 11 degrees. now as we get into friday, good friday, of course, it is not going to be completely dry, but i am hopeful there will be fewer showers. more in the way of dry gaps in between. it won't be as windy and it will feel a little bit warmer. and that certainly is the theme for the start of the easter weekend. 0ur area of low pressure loosening its grip and so not as many showers more in the way of dry weather.

however, there is a lot of uncertainty about the second half of the weekend. there's an area of low pressure that some computer weather models keep well to the south of us, it's this one here. but other computer models push that a lot further north, giving us the chance for some rain. so a lot of uncertainty about the second half of the easter weekend. there will be some rain at times, some spells

live from london, this is bbc news. the us coastguards is six peoples are still missing after a road bridge collapsed into a river in the city of baltimore are now presumed dead. more tough words from washington as a deepening rift between the us and israel over the war in gaza deepens. as mps prepare to vote on a landmark bill, could thailand become the first southeast asian nation to legalise same—sex marriage? hello. a very warm welcome to the programme. i am sally bundock. we begin in baltimore where the six people still missing after container ship broke a key bridge in the city are now presumed dead. the coastguards that it has

suspended its search—and—rescue