Imagine a business which invested 80% of its profits in products with the lowest rate of return.
Is this business destined to succeed? Unlikely.
Yet global efforts to combat climate change bear a worrying similarity.
The Kyoto Protocol has resulted in the emergence of a more than US$60bn (£34bn) carbon market as the world's main mechanism to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
This is a welcome start. But about 80% of this money goes to countries which cause less than 20% of emissions.
 |  Protecting rainforests is not only an environmental concern but an economic issue that cuts to the core of a nation's development   |
We will fail future generations unless we address this lack of proportionality.
In early December, we will have a chance to do this when representatives of almost 200 countries gather in Poznan, Poland to continue forging an agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.
As a rainforest country, securing a proportionate response to tropical deforestation is of particular importance to Guyana.
Tropical deforestation contributes about 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That is about the same as the total emissions from the US, and more than the entire global transportation sector.
Yet under the Kyoto Protocol, it remains more valuable to cut forests down than to leave them standing.
