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Thank you Søren.
Your Royal Highness,
Mr. President,
Colleagues,
Distinguished Guests!
An old Korean proverb goes as follows:
“A day-old pigeon cannot fly over a mountain pass”.
In other words; we need experience as well as knowledge to master the long and difficult journey of transforming our countries into green economies.
I hope, that the opening of this regional 3-GI office will help us share experience while enforcing our common ability to develop new knowledge.
This is crucial, if we are to succeed in our common vision of a low carbon future.
The ambition of the 3GI is to become the leading global institute on green growth.
5 months ago, at the Climate Change Conference in Cancun, I had the great pleasure of announcing the Danish commitment to the institute.
Let me tell you why:
First of all, because Climate change knows no borders, but has the strongest repercussions on those, who have contributed the least to the problem.
In fact, a new study shows, that the climate is changing at a more rapid speed than ever.
Secondly, To curb the challenges we need a coalition of leading green nations like South Korea and Denmark.
And finally, we need to create a toolbox loaded with know-how, expertise and cool cash – so that we can help countries help themselves – and engage with the private sector.
Recently, The United Arab Emirates’ and Australia decided to join us. And so has The Danish company Danfoss and the Korean company Samsung; hence engaging in a truly global public-private partnership.
Hopefully many others will follow.
In many ways, South Korea is an ideal partner for Denmark.
The Republic of Korea is known for its ambitious education policy, its technological capacity and its speedy growth.
Just take a look at the Champions League in football: Who would just a few years ago have expected that a Korean player would participate in the final?
Your country, Mr. President is a fast mover in terms of energy efficiency and renewables.
Denmark is a first mover.
We started our journey towards limiting our energy consumption already in the ‘70’ties. And we haven’t stopped since.
Just take our recent energy strategy in which we set out the goal of becoming independent of fossil fuels by 2050.
Mr. President, I’m convinced, that when a fast mover and a first mover join forces, we will become smart movers.
Now I started on a Korean proverb. Let me finish with a Danish one: “Lonely birds don’t mate”.
So let’s join forces, let’s fly over the mountain pass
And let’s build a strong green economy.
All the best - and congratulations to all of us.
Thank you.