Norway accused of hypocrisy over RI deforestation funding

Norway has been accused of climate hypocrisy in Indonesia, where it has won plaudits for financing forest protection even as its state pension fund allegedly secures even greater revenues from logging, plantations, mining and other environmentally destructive practices.

Conservation groups say Norway’s sovereign wealth fund – thought to be the largest in the world – should set a better example of ethical investment in a country that is experiencing some of the world’s worst deforestation problems.

Environmental groups have highlighted the apparent contradiction in Norway’s approach, which appears to fund conservation from one budget, while investing heavily from another in companies that accelerate deforestation.

The UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency wrote in October to the country’s prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg to call for a new approach. The NGO said Norway’s financial involvement in Indonesia was a net negative for the environment. It said that the $30m (£19m) that Norway provided for REDD projects in 2010 is just of the fifth of the profits and a third of the investment value in companies involved in “logging, plantations, and mining companies currently deforesting large areas of Indonesia.”

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