Summit planned in Helsinki to save Baltic Sea

Participants expected to make concrete commitments for Baltic

print this

President Tarja Halonen, Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre), and the Baltic Sea Action Group (BSAG) foundation are organising an international summit in Finland in February, aimed at protecting the Baltic Sea.
      The Finnish organisers hope that they can get every individual and organisation participating in the meeting to make a public commitment on measures to save the Baltic.
      “The aim is to have a completely different kind of summit. There will be no final declaration. Instead, we will bring a group together, which will roll up its sleeves and get to work”, says the foundation’s representative Saara Kankaanrinta.
     
BSAG is responsible for the content of the meeting, and for the collecting of commitments. The summit will be held in close cooperation with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
      “If the only thing that happens at the end of the meeting is that the black cars drive away, then we will have failed”, Kankaanrinta says.
     
Participation in the Baltic Sea Action Summit on February 10th will be by invitation only. Expected at the summit will be about 400 members of the political, economic, and scientific elites from the different Baltic Sea countries.
      President Halonen and Prime Minister Vanhanen have been marketing the event to heads of state that they have been meeting for over six months. Official invitations have recently been sent out, and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is aware of the matter.
     
One of the models for the commitment for the Baltic has been taken from the Clintonm Global Initiative of former US President Bill Clinton.
      Corporate executives and corporate owners who commit themselves to taking action either in their own name or in the name of their corporations, are to be invited as members.
      The first Finnish corporate executive to become a member of the Global Initiative group in 2007 was Ilkka Herlin, Chairman of the Board of Cargotec. Herlin has been active in BSAG from the beginning as a founding member and financier.
     
In 2007 Cargotec committed itself to changing the load-handling equipment that it manufactures in such a way that in ten years, oil consumption would be six million barrels less than at the current pace.
      Kankaanrinta says that organisers expect participants at the summit to set ambitious timetables for results, and to make commitments on emission reductions and monetary contributions.
      “Everyone will make commitments according to what their authority is. For instance, a king with no political power has power in affecting opinions.”
     
BSAG would like to seek agreements in which companies or organisations will consider as part of their strategy how they could combine their work with the protection of the Baltic Sea.
      As one example, Kankaanrinta mentions the chemicals manufacturer Kemira, which is reassessing its business strategy. “The final outcome was the goal to extract valuable nutrients from sewage and to recycle them as fertiliser.”


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Commission steps back from EU Baltic Sea strategy (17.9.2009)
  Seminar: Binding contracts needed in protection of Baltic Sea (3.6.2009)
  High dioxin levels in sea trout in Baltic Sea (19.5.2009)
  Poor oxygen situation threatens Gulf of Finland - once again (26.3.2009)

Helsingin Sanomat