By the Caribbean Journal staff

Guyana will soon receive $40 million in funding from the government of Norway as part of the latter’s support for Guyana’s Low-Carbon Development Strategy.

The funding announcement was made Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro, where world leaders and climate change experts have gathered for the Rio+20 summit.

According to Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, Guyana will soon receive $40 million, ahead of an additional $60 million pledged later on in 2012.

Guyana, in partnership with Norway, has been implementing an arrangement in which the country has received $70 million in performance-based payments from the avoidance of deforestation.

Guyana can earn up to $250 million by 2015 under that arrangement.

President Donald Ramotar said the financing his country is receiving is allowing Guyana to meet “almost its entire domestic energy needs through clean energy; support the diversification of the national and local economy and thereby reduce pressures on our forests, and to implement measures to adapt to climate change.”