Nordic fund to kick-start Kyoto implementation

The Nordic Council of Ministers – from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – last week took the decision to establish the ‘testing ground’. The idea was developed by the Baltic Sea Region Energy Cooperation and the Climate Change Group (CCG) of the Nordic Council of Ministers (NCM), and based on a proposal put forward by the Nordic Environment Finance Corp.

The facility will play host to programmes that will reduce CO2 emissions from the energy sector. All of these countries have recently ratified the Kyoto Protocol and combined, they produce 1.5% of world emissions of the six greenhouse gases which the Protocol aims to curb. However there is no specific target for CO2 reduction set under the testing ground.

The contributing countries see their joint fund as a paradigm on which other signatories of the Kyoto Protocol can base greenhouse-gas reducing ideas. “The testing ground could help establish an international model and provide input into the international climate change process,” Ulrika Dethlefsen, the CCG Project Manager from the Nordic Council of Ministers told edie.

Each of the five countries will contribute a proportionate amount of money to the fund, with the €10 million sum expected to be reached by July 2004. The fund will become operational when three Nordic countries have contributed, and other countries in the region are encouraged to participate.