– Our danish hosts say that the deal may be ready by Wednesday, so that the international leaders can dance and celebrate when they arrive.

Norwegian Minister for the Environment and International Development, Erik Solheim, was the first speaker at Statkraft's seminar ”101 solutions – from Copenhagen to investments and developments” at the climate summit in Copenhagen. He said that Denmark shortly will bring a proposal for a final deal to the participating countries, and that Norway will have a role to play in this work.

Danish optimism

- The Danes think they will be able to have a deal ready even before the top leaders start arriving on Wednesday, Solheim said. But he warned that nothing is certain.
- There are still difficult problems to be solved, like the challenge of agreeing on how to divide the responsibility between the development countries and the industrialised world. There's also a discussion about the definition of a developing country and a developed country.

Because of these and other challenges, Solheim thinks that the danish deadline might be stretched significantly.

Wants to cooperate with businesses

Solheim also made it clear that after the Copenhagen summit he wants a closer cooperation with the business world on solutions for the climate crisis.
- We need to consider how a closer cooperation between the public and private sectors can bring about results, and I think there are good examples in Norway, like Norfund and the public pension fund.

He also mentioned that several large Norwegian businesses are owned by the state, even though they operate like private companies, and Solheim wants to work with these companies as well. The minister is also open to the use of development funds.
- We can't use this money to build hydropower plants in Africa, for example. But if companies want to invest in these kinds of enterprises, development funds may play a part, Solheim said.