Distinguished guests.

First of all I would like to say a big and warm “Thank you” to our Australian hosts – and the co-hosts, New Zealand, for their great work, and an informative and well organized congress. The WGC 2015 is a great success, and I´m sure that the next phase when many of you travel to New Zealand to explore their impressive geothermal sites will also be productive.

For me and the Icelandic delegation as a whole, coming here to Australia has been a valuable experience. Here we have been able to meet with the world's premiers in this sector, make contacts and network among the best of the best.  We have also had the opportunity to explore a bit of Australia, get a taste of the great and welcoming city of Melbourne, dine at first rate restaurants and see a few of the city's many landmarks.

Some of us have been fortunate enough to have travelled a bit outside the city and seen the beautiful landscape. And the lucky ones of us have even had the privilege to explore some of your unique wildlife…and even take a selfie with a kangaroo. That would be me!

So again, many thanks to our hosts.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Although there are several meetings and congresses all over the world every year that are dedicated to geothermal energy issues, the WGC is the greatest event, sometimes even referred to as the Olympics of geothermal.

Melbourne is an Olympic city and as such held in especially high regard with us Icelanders. Here we won our first Olympic medal ever when Vilhjálmur Einarsson won the silver medal in the triple jump in 1956.

We are all to this day proud of him for this great achievement. I can say here that I am equally as proud today of the Icelandic delegation of experts and scientists who have conquered Melbourne these past few days.

For us and other countries here present that have successfully developed and harnessed the geothermal resource to our countries' benefit, it is important to continue to get the geothermal message across. I am convinced that geothermal enhances the quality of life – we Icelanders and our friends of New Zealand are the best example of that ourselves.

Only 80 years ago, Iceland was one of the poorest countries in Europe. An introduction of city wide geothermal district heating for the capital of Reykjavik was a major game changer.  Not only has it saved a significant amount of foreign currency over the decades that would have been spent on imported coal and oil – it has also improved our air quality and our health, encouraged further environmental progress, and given us our geothermal swimming pools. Today, over 90% of Icelandic homes are connected to geothermal district heating systems and the remaining 10% come electricity generated from either hydro and geothermal.

But the geothermal message is not only about space heating and power generation, it is also about all the other endless possibilities and spin-off industries deriving from the utilization of this great resource. We see a geothermal resource park being developed in the Reykjanes area in Iceland where the concept is that the residual of one industry becomes a resource for the next. A society without waste.

Over the past decade problems that have come up related to the geothermal utilization have been solved with innovative solutions by our experts and scientists  - leading to a whole new industry relying on the resource in another way.

The best example is the Blue Lagoon – one of our most famous tourist sites that developed by “accident” when brine water from a geothermal power plant pooled up next to the plant – causing a problem, which was solved and then harnessed.

Now it has developed into what we might call geothermal tourism.

Other examples in that area include a land based fish farm that uses residual hot water to re-create the living conditions of Senegal Sole, a hot water fish that usually does not live anywhere near the North-Atlantic. And the list goes on and the potential is endless.

This is the message that we want to present to the world. And that is best done through cooperation, both bilateral as well as multilateral at governmental level. I have had very productive meetings here with the energy ministers both from NZ and Australia where we discussed the possibilities of further cooperation. I did the same last week in Paris when I met with Madame Segoléne Royal, the French Minister of Energy, and she expressed great interest in developing this cooperation further.

No less important are the partnerships of the private companies in the industry that we see developing all over the world and witness many of them here forming at the WGC.

I am convinced that further utilization of geothermal energy could become one of the key tools  in our battle against climate change and by further developing the technologies of harnessing the heat inside our planet many of our countries which most of are presented here will play an important role in reducing the global use of fossil fuels. And of course that means that you, the geothermal experts, will have to be on board.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We came to Melbourne to share our knowledge and more importantly to learn from you.

We are extremely proud to have been selected to host the next WGC in Reykjavik in five years time. We have five years to prepare for this event. We will hopefully see many new geothermal developments in Iceland. We will proudly showcase our industry and welcome you to our beautiful country.

For anyone interested in geothermal energy, Iceland is the perfect show-case of opportunities and we look forward very much forward to be presenting them to you.

It is my honour on behalf of the Icelandic Government and the whole geothermal community in Iceland to welcome the 6th World Geothermal Congress to Iceland in 2020.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I look forward to see you in Iceland in 2020.