Ræðismannaráðstefna: Siv Friðleifsdóttir

Ráðstefna fyrir kjörræðismenn Íslands erlendis
Reykjavík, 2.-5. September 2001

Ræður og erindi

Siv Friðleifsdóttir, umhverfisráðherra
"Issues and concerns" - Iceland's environmental policy



Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am delighted to have an opportunity to address this meeting. Your efforts in providing help to Icelanders abroad and assisting people in your countries who want to visit Iceland or establish contact with Icelanders is very important for Iceland. For a country like ours, with a small Foreign Service, it is invaluable to have an asset like the consul generals.

I would like to use this opportunity to discuss briefly some of the main environmental challenges we Icelanders are facing. The environment has become a major concern for the public and policy-makers alike in recent years. We are realising more and more that our nature and natural resources are one of our most valuable assets and therefore must be protected. Tourism has increased by more than 10% per year. Last year was the first one when the number of foreign tourists exceeded the population of Iceland in one year. All forecasts indicate a further increase in arrivals in the years to come.

Why do foreign tourists visit Iceland? Polls show that over 90% of foreign visitors come to Iceland to enjoy nature. This is not a surprise, Iceland has a wealth of natural wonders in the form of waterfalls, bird-cliffs, glaciers, volcanoes, hot springs, et cetera, some of which are rare elsewhere. But often foreigners value most the things that we Icelanders take for granted or don't even notice: Open vistas, mossy lava fields, clean air and water, silence. Some even say that the unpredictable weather just adds to the thrill of getting in touch with the forces of nature! I'm not quite sure I believe that, but I can agree that the weather is seldom dull.

The government wants to make sure that we can continue to welcome the growing number of visitors to places of interest and natural beauty. For this purpose we are now increasing spending on infrastructure in our national parks and other popular or vulnerable areas. Iceland's nature can be raw and majestic, but it is also fragile. Off-road driving, especially in the highlands, can leave ugly scars in the vegetation. They take years or even decades to heal. Fortunately, tourists that visit Iceland tend to be environmentally aware, and respect rules and measures taken to conserve nature.

Nature conservation is a priority for my government and the Ministry for the Environment. This summer we opened the fourth national park in Iceland, on the tip of the Snæfellsnes peninsula. It includes the cone-shaped glacier Snæfellsjökull, which you can see from Reykjavík on clear days and has a place in world literature as the starting point in Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth. It also protects a coastline with strange rock formations and rich birdlife. There are also important remnants of stations used for small fishing boats. This area has the highest density of such fishing stations in the Nordic countries.

Next year, we hope to take an even bigger step in nature conservation, and create a national park encompassing Iceland's biggest glacier, Vatnajökull. This will become Europe's biggest national park, and should become a major magnet for visitors in the coming years and decades. It is unique due to volcanic activity under the glacier and the interplay between fire and ice. In the beginning, the park will include the ice cap itself, but we plan to gradually increase its area by taking in areas of interest around the glacier's edges.

Nature conservation is important for Iceland, but so is also the utilization of natural resources. This goes for our fish stocks and other marine animals, and for our abundant resources of hydro and geothermal energy. The clean and renewable energy of hydro and geothermal power is becoming ever more valuable in a world where the burning of fossil fuels is fuelling climate change. About 67% of Iceland's energy needs are met by renewable energy, which is a world record. At the same time the European Union is aiming at reaching 12% by the year 2010.

We are currently weighing the prospects of a new hydropower station and an aluminium smelter in the East of Iceland in order to halt or hopefully reverse the urbanisation which is presently taking place in my country. These projects have been the subject of a healthy and democratic debate in Iceland for a while. In order to facilitate informed decision-making in the future, the government is currently working on a Master Plan for Hydro and Geothermal Energy Resources. We are evaluating all in all one hundred possible energy projects on the basis of their economic feasibility and social and environmental impacts. In this way, we hope to promote broad agreement and ensure that we can continue to advance nature conservation and the harnessing of renewable energy at the same time.

We are very pleased that an agreement was reached in Bonn this summer on the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. Iceland has been very supportive of this effort and contributed to the negotiations. It became clear very early on in the process of negotiating the Protocol that Iceland was unique in the group of countries that were expected to take on commitments. Iceland stands out in this group of countries primarily for two reasons: Iceland has few inhabitants and does not rely on fossil fuels for electricity production like most of the industrialised countries. Present sources of green house gas emissions are largely originating in mobile energy use, such as in the fishing fleet and road transport.

It therefore became clear in Kyoto that it would be difficult to use the same approach to setting a target for Iceland as was used for large economies such as the US or Germany. We are expanding our aluminium production using clean renewable energy. The green house gas emissions from aluminum production here in Iceland using best available technology is nine times lower than the emissions from aluminium production using electricity produced from coal. But even this small amount becomes significant on the small scale of Iceland. One plant may add over 20% to the emissions from Iceland in 1990, the year used as a reference point in the Kyoto Protocol. At the same time the construction of this plant can lead to a reduction in global emission by more than the entire emissions of Iceland. There is in other words a global benefit to the climate from the use of renewables in aluminium production.

This was a paradox that had to be solved. I am happy to be able to inform you that a good solution has been found to making it possible for Iceland to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Final decision will be taken on this at the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Convention in Marrakech in November. We are very grateful to the governments that have worked with us on this issue. Many of them stated that it would be a sad outcome if it would not be possible for the country, which is least reliant on fossil fuel to joint the global effort, aimed at reducing the world's reliance on fossil fuel.

It will not come as a surprise to you that Iceland is very active in the area of marine environmental protection. The ocean is our live, as you know. Marine products are 73% of our export earnings. The international community reached a major milestone in May when the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants was signed. POPs have been a priority area for us for some time. POPs are chemicals used as pesticides and in industry, which travel long distances and accumulate in the cold regions. The UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called them "travellers without passports". They also accumulate at the top of the food chain and cause hormonal disruptions and cancer in humans. We are concerned that dioxin or other POPs could accumulate to dangerous level in fish in the future if no action is taken now. In Rio de Janeiro in 1992, Iceland called for international action on POPs. We have followed this up since Rio and Iceland made a significant contribution to the fact that we now have the POPs Convention.

It is important to note in this connection that the level of pollution in Icelandic waters is very low. We have one of the cleanest seas in the world around Iceland and we want to keep it this way. This is fundamental for ensuring healthy sea-food and prosperous fishing industry. Next to POPs and heavy metals we consider nuclear pollution the most significant threat to the health of the oceans. We continue to call for substantial reductions in the discharges of Technetium 99 from nuclear reprocessing in Sellafield in North-England. This is in line with the OSPAR Convention on protection of the North Atlantic. Discharges of radioactive substances from nuclear reprocessing facilities should be terminated as a matter of urgency.

We try to take a holistic approach to the use of marine living resources. Marine mammals are an important part of the marine ecosystem that should be utilised in a sustainable manner. There are stocks of whales in Icelandic waters that can sustain controlled harvesting. There is no scientific basis for not using this resource. In this connection we welcome the fact that in the new Nordic policy on Sustainable Development the Nordic countries agree that it is necessary to get the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to function as an institution for conservation, research, and management.

I have focused on the international dimension. We have also been active at home. This last ten years we have transformed the situation on municipal waste treatment. Open pit burning of solid waste was common in Iceland 10-15 years ago but is now almost history. Major investments have been made in the treatment of municipal wastes. We have also taken special action to improve management of hazardous waste. We have used an innovative approach where we levy a special charge on products, which can result in the generation of hazardous waste, when these products enter the market. The funds are used for the treatment of the waste. This is done in close cooperation with industry and has resulted in marked improvements in the return of hazardous waste to receptionfacilities.

This summer a major clean-up effort is under way on the East Coast. A British supply ship El Grillo was sunk during the Second World War in Seyðisfjörður. The ship is believed to contain 2000 - 4000 tons of heavy oil and some explosives lies on the bottom of the firth at 40 meters depth. It is not a simple task to remove the oil and the explosives from the ship. This summer we started what might be the largest clean-up effort from a sunken war ship in recent times in Europe. This is a major undertaking involving foreign contractors and is expected to be conducted at the end of this month.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January the 2001 Environmental Sustainability Index was presented. I was very pleased to see that Iceland ranked among the top ten nations in the word according to this index, which is a measure of overall progress towards environmental sustainability. This was an encouragement but at the same time an inspiration to do better.

We still need to do better. I sense a very broad interest among the general public and industry in environmental issues. This gives me hope that we can do even better in the future.

Thank you for your attention.