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The Prince of Wales to attend the Oslo Climate and Forest Conference 2010
21st May 2010
The Prince of Wales has been invited by The Prime Minister of Norway, Mr. Jens Stoltenberg, to attend the Oslo Climate and Forest Conference and deliver a speech.
The invitation to The Prince was made in recognition of the decades he has spent working to promote environmental awareness and, in particular, his work over the past 3 years to save the world's remaining tropical rainforests.
After arriving in Oslo on Wednesday 26th May 2010, The Prince will attend a dinner for Heads of State and Government at the invitation of Prime Minister Stoltenberg.
During the conference, which will take place on Thursday 27th May 2010 His Royal Highness will also meet Commonwealth Heads of Government.
Background
The goal of the Oslo Climate and Forest Conference is formally to establish a global REDD+ (“Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Degradation,”) partnership endorsed by Heads of State and Government, to provide fast-track funding for early REDD+ efforts. The Prince of Wales is keenly aware of the problems caused by climate change and has reduced his carbon footprint by over 20 per cent in the last three years.
HRH has, through his many programmes and initiatives, worked to increase a consensus between the public and private sectors on how emission reductions could be substantially increased across many sectors of the national and international economy. Additionally, through his overseas travels, HRH has seen at first hand the challenges faced by nations at all levels, including by the most vulnerable indigenous peoples.
Deforestation is responsible for approximately 18 per cent of global carbon emissions and experts now agree that without a solution to this problem there can be no solution to climate change. In response to this challenge, in September 2007, HRH established the Prince’s Rainforests Project to try to develop practical solutions to the problem of destruction of the remaining tropical rainforests.
As part of this work, in April 2009, HRH hosted a meeting about deforestation in the margins of the G20 in London attended by more than a dozen Heads of State and Government. At the meeting an Informal Working Group (IWG) was established, which eventually comprised 35 countries with Norway providing the Secretariat. The IWG published a report in September 2009 which provided practical proposals for an emergency funding package to save the rainforests.
In December 2009 HRH gave a speech to assembled world leaders at the start of the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen -COP15. At this meeting six developed countries pledged $3.5bn to support REDD+ efforts in the period to 2012. Simultaneously, Prime Minister Stoltenberg of Norway announced a new process to facilitate the coordination of REDD+ funding and activities. This process has resulted in the landmark ‘REDD+ Partnership’ with partners agreeing a variety of measures to reduce tropical deforestation in the short term.