Prime Minister of Norway Mr. Jens Stoltenberg has reaffirmed the country’s support for the implementation of Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) which continues to be hailed as a model for sustainable development, according to the Government Information Agency (GINA).

Mr Stoltenberg gave this assurance to President Donald Ramotar in Brazil today where many countries’ leaders and climate change experts have gathered for the Rio+20 summit in Rio de Janeiro. 

The Norwegian Prime Minister expressed satisfaction with work of LCDS and indicated that Guyana will soon receive another US $40M and later this year, US$60M. 

Guyana in partnership with Norway, which is located in Northern Europe, has been implementing an Interim REDD+ arrangement through which the country has already earned about US$70 M in performance- based payments from avoided deforestation and under which the country can earn up to US$ 250 M by 2015. 

During a side meeting organised by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) of India in association with the German Federal Environment Agency (UBA) and Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), Japan, on Tuesday, President Ramotar explained that the financing his country is garnering, is being utilised to execute projects that will allow the country to meet "almost its entire domestic energy needs through clean energy; support the diversification of the national and local economy and thereby reduce pressures on our forests, and to implement measures to adapt to climate change."

During the meeting today, President Ramotar also expressed condolence to Norway’s Prime Minister for the recent tragedies the country has faced.

In July last, a Norwegian national went on a shooting and bombing rampage that claimed the lives of 77 people, most of whom were youths on an island at a summer camp.

Guyana and Norway on November 18, 2009 signed the historic Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), symbolically at Fairview village, Region Nine to protect Guyana’s tropical forests. 

The MoU is a declaration of the two countries’ determination to work together to provide the world with a working example of how partnerships between developed and developing countries can save the world’s tropical forests.

The partnership is part of the Norwegian Government’s International Climate and Forest Initiative that was first launched in December 2007 during the climate change negotiations at Bali.