On Tuesday, 23 April, an agreement has been signed between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Norway and the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Latvia on the implementation of the Norway Grants programme “Mitigation, Adaptation and Environment” (hereinafter the Programme) in Latvia.
By the spring of 2024, the programme will contribute to addressing climate and environmental issues. Climate change is one of the challenges affecting economic and social development in Europe and Latvia. Currently, there is a lack of systematic measures in Latvia to achieve climate policy goals, as well as to improve greenhouse gas reduction and adaptation data. At the same time, in the field of environmental protection, the risk posed by contaminated sites to humans and the environment is a major problem. The register of polluted and potentially polluted sites in Latvia has more than 3.5 thousand sites.
To address climate change and environmental issues of major importance to Latvia, it is planned to support two pre-defined climate change policy integration projects and open contests for remediation projects for contaminated sites.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development will implement the project “Integration of Climate Change Policy into Sectoral and Regional Policies”, which envisages the development and implementation of various tools for integrating climate change policies into sectoral and regional policies. Within the framework of the project, a regional data collection and reporting system will be developed, an electronic database on ozone-depleting substances and F-gases will be developed, the national alert system will be improved, the latest data on Latvian coastal erosion will be developed, as well as other results will be achieved. The project will be implemented in cooperation with the Central Statistical Bureau, the Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Centre and the Norwegian Environment Agency.
The Ministry of Agriculture will implement the project “Enhancement of sustainable soil resource management in agriculture”, which aims to improve climate policy planning by restoring data on national soil. This will contribute to sustainable land resource management and strengthen the capacity to adapt to climate change. The project will be implemented in cooperation with the University of Latvia, the State Plant Protection Service, the Latvian Forest Science Institute SILAVA and the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomics Research.
The public tender projects “Reducing the Risks Associated with Historically Contaminated Sites” is intended to support the rehabilitation of at least three historically contaminated sites, which will result in the clean-up of sites and reduce the potential harm to human health, the environment and biodiversity. After the implementation of the projects, it will be possible to develop and use these territories for new purposes.
The total allocation for the programme is 16.5 million euro (Norway Grants allocation 14 million euro, national co-financing 2.5 million euro). In addition 100 thousand euros were granted to the programme for bilateral cooperation activities, which will include the exchange of expertise and bilateral relations between Latvia and Norway. The Norwegian Environment Agency is the donor country partner of the programme.
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