Statsministerens tale ved Oslo konferencen om etableringen af et Skovpartnerskab den 27. maj 2010

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Your Royal Highness, Heads of state and government, Ministers, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I appreciate the opportunity to address you here today. We are gathered to launch a new partnership with the purpose of reducing deforestation, forest degradation and climate change.

At COP15 in Copenhagen, we reaffirmed the fundamental principles established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. We also reached a political understanding - the Copenhagen Accord, which establishes a framework for concrete actions in the field of adaptation and mitigation.

It is encouraging that 126 countries have associated themselves with the Copenhagen Accord. And 79 countries have provided information to the appendixes on their efforts. Together these countries represent almost 90% of the world economy.

One fundamental feature of the Copenhagen Accord was its insistence on immediate action. And this is why we are gathered here today in Oslo. The new partnership for REDD+, which we are now launching, and the process of establishing the partnership demonstrates how the Accord can be the vehicle for concrete action that we wanted it to be. Norway and France should be commended for having shown the way forward.

Additional processes have been launched and probably new partnerships are emerging building on the Accord and the experience from REDD+. At the informal ministerial climate dialogue in Petersburg informal consultations on critical issues such as mitigation and MRV and on adaptation were launched. Individual countries joined efforts and took leadership. I hope they will be equally successful in achieving concrete outcome as an important contribution to UNFCCC negotiations towards COP16. And we offer our full support and collaboration to the Mexican presidency in its efforts to secure these results later this year in Cancun.

Another critical feature of the Copenhagen Accord was the joint commitment to generate fast start financing. Developed countries have committed to providing fast start financing as well as long term financing to the developed countries. The High Level Panel on long term finance set up by the UN Secretary General will set the tone for the long term finance. For the short term finance, many countries have already shown a high level of commitment to fulfilling the target set by the Copenhagen Accord.

The Danish contribution to fast start financing totals 220 million USD. As part of our contribution we will expand our funding to REDD+ by an additional 10 million USD.
Our task is to ensure that the significant commitments are turned into concrete actions in the developing countries for the benefit of the global climate. But also to pave the way for sustainable development and green growth in our future.

I think the Partnership launched today is an important step forward and a historical moment and I want personally to congratulate my colleague Jens Stoltenberg and the entire world with the result achieved here today.

Thank you.