Norway has announced $1bn in aid to protect forests in Indonesia and hopes to forge a partnership to fight climate change
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 May 2010 17.19 BST
Norway hopes to boost aid to fight tropical deforestation at a conference tomorrow, and to set in motion a partnership to unlock cash pledged at the Copenhagen summit to help slow climate change.
Norway says developed nations have promised $500m (£347m) to fight deforestation by 2012 on top of $3.5bn agreed at Copenhagen, and new pledges at the conference may bring the total aid closer to $5bn.
Fifty nations will take part in the Oslo meeting, to be attended by Britain's Prince Charles and the financier George Soros, to forge a "partnership" between donors and countries from the Amazon to Congo basins for protecting forests.
Plants soak up carbon dioxide as they grow, helping to curb the increasing rise in carbon levels.
"Reducing deforestation is the biggest, fastest, cheapest way to cut carbon emissions," the Norwegian prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, told reporters yesterday.
Norway, rich in oil, also formally announced $1bn in aid to Indonesia to help protect forests in the south-east Asian state, using money Oslo previously had pledged as part of its effort to combat climate change.
The partnership between donors and forested developing nations will be one of the first signs of action against climate change after the Copenhagen summit failed to deliver a legally binding deal on man-made emissions.
But rich nations did agree to provide $30bn from 2010-12 to help poor countries, rising to at least $100bn a year from 2020.
The United States, Australia, France, Japan, Britain and Norway agreed on $3.5bn from 2010-12 to save forests.
But getting the climate aid flowing has become tougher as many governments of rich countries face sharp cuts in public finances to save their economies from mounting debt problems.
"$4bn is a very good start but clearly bigger amounts will be needed in the years ahead," Erik Solheim, Norway's environment minister, told Reuters. "You cannot expect poor nations to bear the cost of reducing deforestation without the support of big polluters like Europe, the United States, Japan and others."
Deforestation – mainly by countries making way for farms, roads or towns – accounts for about 15-20% of all greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.
Business groups say that the proposed partnership should do more to involve the private sector and encourage markets to trade carbon dioxide stored in forests, while environmentalists want stronger strings attached to any cash.
