Official visit to Malaysia: Deep Green Challenge for Change

Honorable Ministers,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Crown Princess and I have had two exciting days here in Malaysia. We are both very happy to be here – to learn more about Malaysia, and to contribute to strengthen the relations between our two countries in many different areas. It is equally a great pleasure to be here at the Deep Green Challenge for Change, finals, and to present the prizes to the winners.

Preserving the environment on our planet can be regarded as the greatest team building session the world has ever seen. Everybody has a role to play.
We must all pull together, at national and international level, governments and businesses, cities and small communities alike. Then we can hope for a greener future. This competition, set up and sponsored by DiGi, to discover and showcase energy solutions, is a good example on how private sector can contribute.

The competition has an important focus – since the main challenge is the application of renewable energy solutions for remote communities in Malaysia. The development of new and innovative technologies is a key factor in fighting climate change and preserving the environment.

It is, however, important that this technology is also made available for all communities and all levels of society. It is obviously a connection between climate change and development. We have a great responsibility to do something about the climate situation because the effects are hitting the poor the hardest. This competition is therefore a great example on how to combine green thinking, innovation and development.

I have a positive vision of the future. I picture innovation to get more interesting than ever before – and it will create lots of new job opportunities. The vehicles we will drive will be powered by clean energy – running on batteries, hydrogen, algae bio-fuels – or some other technology yet unknown. We will have lots of new stuff that we don’t know we need or want today, but that we cannot imagine living without in the future. And most important of all, it will be sustainable. When we buy a product in a sustainable future, we will know that it is clean. That the product did not contribute to harming our environment.

Over the two last years, I have had the opportunity to go to Greenland and to Svalbard, a Norwegian island close to the North Pole, together with the Crown Prince of Denmark and the Crown Princess of Sweden. On this trip we learned more about how the climate has changed both from the view of scientist and from the local communities. In the ice we found pollution emitted more than 50 years ago. This shows that evidence of what we do today will be found in nature in the future.

In closing let me congratulate all students that have participated in this challenge. In my opinion you are all winners - because you have involved yourselves in our common fight against climate change and for a greener future.