Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was named over the weekend to take over as chairman of the United Nations’ High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing. He succeeds former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who recently resigned.
It’s a prestigious job for Stoltenberg and Norway, and a challenging one, as he and fellow group members seek ways of financing measures to cut emissions and otherwise try to reverse climate change.
Norway, under Stoltenberg’s left-center government, has pledged billions to preserve the world’s rain forests, which Stoltenberg sees as the “cheapest” means of reducing harmful emissions. He also has played a leading role in climate change negotiations around the world.
He was appointed to the UN group just this past spring by the UN’s secretary general, to mobilize the financing promised for efforts against climate change during the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen last December. Developed countries are charged with raising USD 30 billion by 2012 and USD 100 billion annually from 2020 to fund measures aimed at limiting global warming to an increase of 2 degrees Celsius.
Members of the group include the prime minister of Ethiopia, the president of Guyana, government ministers from around the world including the finance ministers for Mexico and Singapore, and financiers including the vice chairman of Deutsche Bank, the president of the African Development Bank and the director of the US National Economic Council.
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