On March 29, 2024, NDTV reported that, “President Irfaan Ali was speaking in an interview to BBC journalist Stephen Sackur, who had questioned the President on Guyana’s carbon emission rates as it planned to extract oil and gas along its coast… In a viral interview clip, Guyanese President can be seen interrupting the question of the journalist, and cross questioning him on whether he had the “right to lecture him on climate change” and if he was in the “pockets of those who destroy the environment through the industrial revolution and are now lecturing us… 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 developed world is going to pay for it or are you in their pockets?” the Guyanese President said.”