Erik Solheim has been flying, eating, and sleeping overnight first class for more than four million Nkr, nearly without being present in the headquarters of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi during the almost 22 months he has led the organisation.
His negligent treatment of the United Nations’ budgets, his own lack of concern for the environment, and his failure as leader of the United Nations Environmental Programme has attracted international attention.
The United Nations Environmental Programme has been placed in an unfavourable light, and it gives Norway neither a good profile nor a favourable diplomatic publicity!
One might ask oneself why the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ine Marie Eriksen Søreide, has not acted? Obviously, she should have, as Norway is one of the chief contributors of UNEP; consequently, it is the money from Norwegian tax payers for which Solheim has travelled.
The Foreign services of Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands have been more alert than our own; they have reacted forcefully to Solheim’s behaviour and made it clear that they would stop their contributions to UNEP unless something was done.
Consequently, it did not take long before the General Secretary of the United Nations, António Guterres, fired Solheim. Embarrassing for Norway! Embarrassing for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs!
According to The Guardian trade, a trade union leader with the United Nations labelled the disclosures in the wake of the investigation on Solheim «mind-blowing». An outstanding climate scientist accused Solheim of a totally «obscene CO2 hypocrisy». Embarrassing for Sosialistisk Venstreparti (the Socialist Left) and for all environmentalists!
According to The Guardian, Solheim has in addition to flying, eating, and sleeping overnight at the expense of the taxpayers and the environment,
- wasted a lot of time and money on rebranding UNEP to «UN Environment»
- let his son jump the queue, providing him with a UNEP internship before hundreds of Kenyan students
- brought his son on an official journey to China, altered the itinerary for private purposes and failed to pay back the additional costs
- given the company MoBike the United Nations’ Champion of the Earth award in exchange for free bikes to those employed at UNEP
- wasted 500.000 Euro for sponsoring Volvo Ocean Races
- doubled the personnel costs of UNEP almost four times
According to The Guardian, one of the employees with UNEP complains in a letter that «the organisation has been led by Solheim’s personal preferences, that UNEP has shifted for itself because Solheim has hardly been present, always travelling with his personal assistants, in particular Hao Chen …»
We do not know Hao Chen; according to The Guardian one thing is, however, obvious, «the firing of Solheim will not alter the essential problem regarding the United Nations’ Environmental Program, namely the fact that the nearly five billion annually given to the program, are totally wasted.»
In the wake of the issue, it has also been revealed that UNEP while led Solheim signed an MoU with Kjell Inge Røkke’s company, REV Ocean, the company in which Solheim’s wife, Gry Ulverud, has been employed as Strategy director.
The deal was allegedly signed on 5 May. Gry Ulverud began in REV Ocean on 1 June, which of course might be a coincidence. The Røkke owned Rev Ocean is led by Nina Jensen, the sister of the Minister of Finances, Siv Jensen; they aim at building the world’s largest research vessel and the tallest building in Norway at Fornebu.
Then, what now about the former member of Sosialistisk Venstreparti, the always smiling «peak diplomat» Erik Solheim? He has a rather complicated career behind him, with several turbulent exits in the wake of projects that can hardly be labelled successful.
In the year 2000, he was appointed Special Adviser in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by Jens Stoltenberg. He engaged himself strongly in the efforts to bring the bloody civil war in Sri Lanka to an end, first as Norwegian negotiations leader, and then as Minister of International Aid.
Eventually, the strive for peace fell to pieces. Solheim was criticised for having contributed to prolonging the conflict and humanitarian sufferings and in 2009 was thrown out.
In 2012, Solheim reluctantly had to resign as Minister of the Environment and Development from the Stoltenberg II Government. Afterwards, he returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, among other enterprises becoming involved with the peace process in Southern Sudan, where Norway had a rather unfortunate hand with the development.
In 2014, Norway at last had to withdraw from the process in the wake of strong criticism from both parties of the conflict.
From 2013, Solheim led the OECD International Aid Committee, until he was appointed Director of the United Nations Environmental Programme in 2016, until he was just recently fired.
Is it like that in a few weeks, everything is forgotten and the smiling Solheim is ready for fresh tasks as Norwegian «peak diplomat» and Saviour of the world environment, peace, and development?
Politicians distribute the international top commissions and the domestic retreat positions among themselves and have a tendency to protect their own ones. And the memory of most people is short. It is not like in the private sector, that you are blamed for cocking up and get fired.
It is therefore more probable that Solheim will be rewarded with a position as ambassador, for instance in Vienna as Jan Pettersen with Høyre was after being responsible as Minister of Foreign Affairs for the extremely miserable handling of the crisis in the wake of the tsunami in Indonesia and Thailand in 2004?
Or, will he perhaps be rewarded with the position as county governor in the new large county of Viken, like his former party colleague, Øystein Djupedal, was in Aust-Agder, when he had to resign as Minister of Knowledge in 2007 because of massive criticism of conducting a weak education politics and for having totally neglected research for a long period of time?
Or he might possibly replace Karl Erik Schjøtt-Pedersen as Managing Director of Norsk Olje og Gass (Norwegian Oil and Gas), an appointment that Schjøtt-Pedersen probably got as a position of retreat following «lack of leadership, co-operation and ability to live by and realise his own decisions», as he was responsible for the lack of coordination as chief of staff at the office of the Prime Minister during the events connected to Utøya and the bombing of the government block in 2011?
Or maybe he returns to politics? Or perhaps he gets a fresh job with Kjell Inge Røkke together with his wife at REV Ocean? There are several possibilities.
Translated to English by Lars Hoem