India and Norway set to launch Green Strategic Partnership, says Ambassador May-Elin Stener

Norway and India are set to announce a Green Strategic Partnership during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's landmark visit to Oslo, the first by an Indian premier in 43 years, the Norwegian ambassador to India has said.

Ambassador May-Elin Stener told WION's Sidhant Sibal that the partnership places climate and sustainability at the heart of bilateral ties as India pursues rapid, green-led growth. "India is not only the most populous country, but also the fastest growing economy of the big economies, and the development is very fast in India," she said.

"The Indian government's ambitions are also very high in terms of making this development green", explained further.

Norway, a major energy producer despite its small size, sees significant opportunities to share technology with India in renewable energy, green maritime solutions and sustainable development. Ambassador Stener described the partnership as a "win-win" that matches Norwegian expertise with India's scale.

"We are an energy power... and we have a lot of technologies that we would like to also share with Indian stakeholders on this journey to green energy," she added.

A business conference in Oslo on Monday is expected to yield several memorandums of understanding (MoUs) between Indian and Norwegian companies focused on these areas.

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PM Modi is scheduled to arrive in Oslo on Monday. The visit marks his first trip to the country and comes more than four decades after Indira Gandhi's visit in 1983.

The centrepiece of the trip will be the Nordic-India Summit on Tuesday, bringing together leaders from India and all five Nordic nations. It will be the third such summit, following the last one in Copenhagen in 2022.

Ambassador Stener said the gathering would address both bilateral green cooperation and the broader global outlook."We will discuss the geopolitical situation," she said.

"All five, all six countries that are meeting are democracies. We all support a rules-based world order, so we will discuss the world situation on the basis of this. How can we together help the situation that is, and the difficulties that we have."

India currently has a similar arrangement, a "green strategic partnership" only with Denmark. The visit shows growing ties between India and Nordic nations amid shifting global dynamics, with cooperation on clean technology and shared democratic values expected to feature prominently in discussions.