The Norwegian parliament pledged that the government’s public procurement policy will go deforestation-free.
Norway is a leader in funding forest conservation around the world (see here, here, and here, for example), and has also taken a stand for the human rights of forest communities. But now the country has announced that it will walk the walk itself.
In what’s being hailed as a groundbreaking move, the Norwegian parliament pledged yesterday that the government’s public procurement policy will be going deforestation-free.
The Rainforest Foundation Norway, which has worked for a number of years to secure a zero deforestation commitment from the Norwegian government in regard to its supply chains, said in a statement that “Norway is the first country in the world to commit to zero deforestation in its public procurement.”
The Norwegian parliament’s Standing Committee on Energy and the Environment made the pledge in a recommendation on the government’s Action Plan on Nature Diversity. The Committee requested in the recommendation that the government “impose requirements to ensure that public procurements do not contribute to deforestation of the rainforest.”
Further details on what those requirements will actually entail will have to be elaborated upon by the government as a follow-up to the decision made today by the parliament, according to Rainforest Foundation Norway.
The Standing Committee on Energy and the Environment also requested that the government address the need to protect biodiversity through the investments made by Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global, and that a separate policy for biodiversity be developed.
Today’s announcement would seem to make good on a joint declaration Norway issued with Germany and the UK at a UN climate summit in New York in September 2014, which stated the three countries’ intention to “promote national commitments that encourage deforestation-free supply chains, including through public procurement policies to sustainably source commodities such as palm oil, soy, beef and timber.”
The global trade in agricultural commodities has become an increasingly important driver of tropical deforestation. A December 2015 study found that, between 2000 and 2011, the production of beef, palm oil, soy, and wood products (including timber and pulp and paper) in just seven countries with high deforestation rates (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea) was responsible for 40 per cent of total tropical deforestation and 44 per cent of associated carbon emissions.
Rainforest Foundation Norway’s Nils Hermann Ranum said Norway’s pledge to go deforestation-free was an important victory in the fight to protect rainforests and called on other countries to follow Norway’s lead by adopting similar zero deforestation commitments, particularly Germany and the UK, given their joint statement at the UN Climate Summit.
“Over the last few years, a number of companies have committed to cease the procurement of goods that can be linked to destruction of the rainforest,” Ranum said in a statement.
“Until now, this has not been matched by similar commitments from governments. Thus, it is highly positive that the Norwegian state is now following suit and making the same demands when it comes to public procurements.”
(eco-business)
‘I am looking forward to receiving colleagues from 12 key African countries on Thursday and Friday this week. They include the foreign ministers of Africa’s two largest economies, Nigeria and South Africa. Developments in Africa are important to Norway, and we have many common challenges. African countries are also important as cooperation partners and markets,’ said Minister of Foreign Affairs Børge Brende.
London- Ever since State of Law Coalition leader Nouri al-Maliki asked the militias of the Popular Mobilization Forces to join the operation to retake the Iraqi city of Fallujah from ISIS, international organizations began to shout out loud over the fate of residents after sporadic shelling put their lives at risk.
The Nigerian-Norwegian Chamber of Commerce (NNCC) has been launched in Lagos to promote socio-economic relationship between Africa’s biggest economy and the Nordic country.
When Snøhetta was approached to develop and identity for Høyskolen Kristiania it developed a concept that would embrace the school’s holistic focus on the individual rather than education alone. Høyskolen Kristiania is the result of the merger of four Norwegian schools and the new identity was required to establish a strong brand and enhance the school’s competitiveness.
European lobby group Airlines for Europe (A4E) said it is “astonished” that Norway’s government is pressing ahead with a new airline passenger tax despite evidence that such levies depress demand and weaken both airlines and airports.
“If a customer is bad you need to manage it yourself to the end. You only call the police if you think you are going to die. If you call the police, you lose everything”
Companies come together to develop new hydrogen stations in Norwegian cities.
Norsk Titanium AS, the world’s pioneering supplier of aerospace-grade, additive manufactured, structural titanium components, today announced it has closed a $10 million growth debt facility with Harbert European Growth Capital Fund I (HEGCF) as part of the company’s current aerospace production financing round.
Norwegians have spent more than 30 hours reading out terms and conditions from smartphone apps in a campaign by the country’s consumer agency, the BBC reported.
Finnish state-owned defence manufacturer Patria on Wednesday announced a plan to privatize a portion of the company by selling it to Kongsberg, a partially state-owned defence company in Norway.
Researchers at the University of Bergen in Norway have examined the associations between workaholism and psychiatric disorders among 16,426 working adults.
Czech mother Eva Michalakova is ready to fight Norwegian authorities until she wins her two sons back, she said during the court proceedings that started dealing with her appeal against stripping her of her parental rights and the adoption of the younger son yesterday.
Plans are underway for the US and its military as well as Norway to seek to have access to the PRS signal from the Galileo constellation.
The foundation that puts on the annual gathering of dissidents and journalists has received at least $900,000 in funding from the tech billionaire.
ALGIERS-Minister of State, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Ramtane Lamamra will partake Thursday and Friday in Oslo (Norway) in a closed meeting between FMs of fifteen African countries and five Nordic ones, the Foreign Affairs Ministry announced in a communiqué
A 35-year-old Norwegian man who was vacationing on Skiathos has been found dead in a swimming pool on the island in the Sporades are an archipelago along the east coast of Greece, northeast of the island of Euboea, in the Aegean Sea.
The ‘last man standing’ from the invasion of Norway in World War Two has been recognised by the country with a diploma.
Global brands, including McDonald’s, Tesco, Iglo, Young’s Seafood, Icelandic Seachill, alongside the Norwegian Fishing Vessel Owners Association, Fiskebåt, Russian fishing giant, Karat and Europe’s largest processor of frozen fish, Espersen, have today said “no” to the further expansion of cod fishing into the previously-frozen Northern Barents Sea — an area twice the size of France. [1]
Cambodia Angkor Air, code K6, has appointed APG as its GSA in France, USA, UK, Spain, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands.
I am in the Norwegian capital for the Oslo Freedom Forum, a brilliant initiative that that brings together the liberal activists and intellectuals of the world. There are heroes who dared to defy the North Korean dystopia, the tyrannies of the Arab world, or the dictatorships in Russia, Gabon or Serbia. It is a great place to learn more about the struggles for freedom by those who genuinely believe in freedom.