New Swedish Initiative to Support Environment

The Swedish government will establish an international commission that will environmentally insure the world's development aid efforts. The work commences this autumn and will finish to coincide with Sweden's presidency of the European Union in the second half of 2009.

Today, Monday, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has informed the UN chief on the Swedish initiative. Over 70 heads of state are gathered in New York to lay down the general guidelines fore the big UN climate conference in Bali on December. Shortly before his departure, Reinfeldt told Dagens Nyheter about his initiative. "Sweden lies on the front edge as donor country. But ours and others development aid risk being jeopardised by climatic changes. The Commission's work is to find out how one can use development aid to meet climatic threats," said Reinfeldt.

The Commission, as it will be called for short, stands for "The Commission on climate change development" , will be led by Swedish Aid Minister Gunilla Carlsson and will consist of researchers and representatives from both donor and recipient countries. A secretariat will be created in Stockholm with a budget of 10-15 million SEK. The work will go on stream already this autumn and continue for 18 months. The recommendations to the world's donor countries will be the end result, and later to be presented during Sweden's EU presidency in the second half of 2009.

The New York conference theme is "The Future in our Hands," called by UN chief Ban Ki Moon. Representatives from more than 150 countries are gathered to outline the guidelines for the big climate conference in Bali, Indonesia on Dec. 3-14, 2007. At the forthcoming Bali conference, the world leaders are expected to come to arrive at a new international agreement which will take the place of the Kyoto Protocol when it expires on 2012. According to the time frame, the new agreement will be taken up by autumn 2009, when Sweden has the EU Presidency.
(Translated from Dagens Nyheter, Sept. 24, 2007)