CC9 climate conference: Opening speech

Excellencies,
Distinguished guests,

I just got back from a fascinating five day visit to Greenland. Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and myself went on a climate related study trip where we focused on the answers we can find in the ice, the limits to our knowledge and what consequences a warming planet has on the arctic life.

We met with fishermen and hunters who described how they over the last fifty years had observed the ocean rise more than 30 centimetres, that a glacier tong of several kilometres had melted, and that the winter ice was less reliable. As a consequence, the fish stocks, the lively hood of the village, had moved to other areas with more reliable ice.

We also had the privilege of studying the work of the scientists at the NEEM research station. They are hoping to observe temperature and climate more than 140 000 years back by drilling into the icecap.

For anyone who is interested in reaching the Millennium Development Goals and poverty alleviation it makes sense to go to the Arctic. Here we can find some of the keys to understanding how and why the climate is changing.

There are many concerns related to the fact that the globe is warming:
One of the most severe is that the poorest are hit disproportionately hard. The first impact of global warming has been on the very things the poorest depend on most: such as dry-land agriculture; tropical forests and subsistence fishing.

Another point of concern is that it takes a long time before the consequences play out. The warming of the ocean constitutes a time lag because it takes so long to warm up. It’s a bit like if you put a large pot of cold water on your stove and slowly turn the heat up. The first minutes the water will still be cold and even if we stop turning up the heat from underneath, the water will continue to warm up for some time until it reaches its equilibrium. This means that the oceans are, as of now, slowing down the warming, but they will continue to warm up for years, even if we are successful at halting the remittance of greenhouse gasses.

The challenge we face demands of us that we are humble. It is not a question of being absolutely sure and waiting until we find absolute proof that we are right one way or the other. It is about assessing risk and finding the best possible solutions based on the best scientific knowledge that we already have available to us. We must give the task of creating a better future our honest and very best efforts.

So what will the future look like? To be honest—I think we have much to look forward to.

In a sustainable economy, a lot of new and interesting job opportunities will open up. Innovation will be fascinating as never before. The vehicles we will drive will be running on batteries, hydrogen, algae bio-fuels or some other renewable energy source. We will have all the new stuff that we don’t know we need or want today, but that we cannot imagine to live without in the future. The products will be useful, practical and cool. And most important of all, they will be sustainable. When we buy a product in a sustainable future and we hold it in our hands for the first time, we will know that it is clean. That product did not contribute to harming our environment.

And we will have a more secure world where the sources of energy are more evenly spread, from private energy production, local energy production to national and regional energy production facilities.

This is a future I would love to hand over to my children and grand children. We are fortunate to be part of the generation that has these opportunities within our reach. Thank you for all the hard work you are putting into creating a better future.

This conference is a result of joint forces of Club de Madrid, the Bellona foundation and Hafslund. I hope your discussions will be fruitful and that this conference will be a constructive step forward towards Copenhagen.

Thank you for your attention.