Duke Energy to fund offshore North Carolina wind project

Duke Energy Corp has agreed to fund a pilot study of commercial wind turbines in the waters offshore of North Carolina, the utility holding company said on Tuesday.

The company had contracted with the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill to place up to three wind turbines in Pamlico Sound.

The project builds on a study, completed in June 2009 by the university for the North Carolina General Assembly, which found the state was well positioned to develop utility-scale wind energy production, Duke Energy said in a statement.

The scope of Duke Energy’s funding for the project had not been established yet, company spokesman Tim Pettit said, noting the utility was now selecting a supplier for the turbines.

Pettit said while the company had a lot of experience with wind farms on land, it was interested in the cost of offshore projects to determine how commercially viable these might be.

The goal was to have the project in operation in one year.

The pilot study would focus on Pamlico Sound, between North Carolina’s Outer Banks and the mainland, rather than areas with more wind further offshore, because waters in the sound were under state control, University of North Carolina Vice Chancellor Carolyn Elfland said.

She is project manager for the UNC Coastal Wind Study which was presented to the state legislature in June.

In August, the U.S. Interior Department said it would be at least a year before it was ready to consider permits for wind farms in federal waters.

UNC’s Elfland said the planned demonstration turbines could be the first turbines placed in U.S. offshore waters. She added Rhode Island was also going ahead with a pilot offshore wind energy commercial project.

Various European countries have been operating offshore wind farms since the early 1990s.

The pilot turbine installation will facilitate utility-scale wind energy development by enabling studies to optimize measuring and predicting the wind resource, quantifying ecological impacts, and demonstrating turbine performance in tropical storm conditions, Duke Energy said.

Duke Energy has 634 megawatts (MW) of land-based wind energy in Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming, another 99 MW under construction and an additional 251 MW of wind projects scheduled to begin operation in 2010.

Source:
Reuters, “Duke Energy to fund offshore North Carolina wind project“, accessed October 6, 2009

Tropics face fish famine due to climate change, report warns

The first study to look at how climate change will affect food supplies offshore warns of severe declines in fish stocks in some of the world’s poorest regions
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 8 October 2009 18.21 BST
Fish populations in the tropics could fall by as much as 40% over the next half century because of global warming, jeopardising a vital food source for the developing world, a new study published today has found.
The waters off Indonesia - which rank among the most plentiful areas for fish today - could see supplies fall by well over 20% by 2055 because of changes in ocean conditions. Fishermen operating in US coastal waters (excluding Alaska and Hawaii) could also face large declines in fish stocks, as would those working off Chile and China.
“Fish are very sensitive to temperatures, and when the temperatures warm because of climate change, the fish will move away. And some of the species - those that can’t swim that far - may locally go extinct,” said William Cheung, lead author of the study.
The study, conducted by the Sea Around Us project at the University of British Columbia, is the first to look at how climate change will affect food supplies offshore. It is published in the journal, Global Change Biology.
But not all regions would be losers. Cooler climates would see their catch potential rise by between 30% and 70% by 2055, with Norway, Greenland, Alaska and the east coast of Russia seeing the biggest increases. This is because fish will migrate northwards as the oceans warm to seek out suitable cooler waters.
But while the overall productivity of the world’s oceans will remain roughly the same, the sharp declines in fish stocks in Asia, the Caribbean, and semi-enclosed seas like the Mediterranean could cause severe shortfalls in some of the poorest regions of the world.
Sub-saharan Africa and south Asia are already threatened with food shortages because of climate change. A study last week by the International Food Policy Research Institute projected sharp declines in rice and wheat crops by mid-century because of global warming, which could see more than 25 million malnourished children around the world.
In many parts of Africa and south-east Asia, people depend on fish and seafood for half of their animal protein.
“It is devastating,” said Daniel Pauly, a marine biologist at the University of British Columbia who worked on the study. “Basically you have lots of people living at the edge of the sea. They depend on fisheries, not in the way we do in northern countries. So income-wise and consumption-wise they are affected directly by the decline in catch.”
The study used computer modelling to gauge the effects of climate change on more than 1,000 species of fish, from krill to shark, across the 20 largest fishing zones.
It did not take into account the effects of ocean acidification - caused by more carbon dioxide dissolving in seawater and which scientists expect will reinforce the effects of warming on the oceans. “We think that our estimates should be considered conservative because adding ocean acidification into the equation would further decrease future fishery potential,” said Cheung. He said a follow-up study would look at the effects of acidification.
The scientists found that the warming seas were driving fish from their current habitats, with for example, tropical mainstays like snapper moving north. Some will successfully migrate to colder waters - reflected in the projected increase in fish populations in more northern waters. But others will not survive the changes. “Not all of them will make it. They can handle it only by shifting more energy to resisting the higher temperatures, which means less growth and less potential for harvesting,” said Pauly.
The study did not focus on individual species. However, scientists said the changes brought by warming seas would see the decline and possible disappearance of familiar fish even in colder waters, like those off Britain. Cod stocks will flee British waters for Iceland, Norway and Greenland.

Lithium car batteries may shift balance of industrial power

Leo Lewis, Asia Business Correspondent

The lithium car battery is primed to become a “major disruptive force” over the next decade, dictating the fate of the world’s largest vehicle makers, reshaping the electronics industry and sparking possible tensions between the mineral haves and have-nots.
As carmakers ponder moves into greener manufacturing, the risks of mistakes grow greater with every new battery maker or technology that emerges. With the industry rules reset by lithium, analysts say, new businesses are expected to appear from nowhere. Many will fail but some may go on to become the new General Motors or Toyota.
Lithium batteries and the prospect of some future worldwide market for electric cars have already propelled Wang Chuanfu, the founder of the car and battery maker BYD, to become China’s richest man as shares in his company soared. A year earlier, he was 103rd in the rankings.
The prospect of lithium’s rising dominance over a post-oil economy has begun to draw warnings from government and industrial sources that seismic shifts are about to take place. The investment scene surrounding batteries, analysts say, may become more complex as new companies emerge to challenge the established players and speculative bubbles inflate throughout all stages of the battery-making process.

Brokers are touting ways to play the lithium story, from battery producers, such as Samsung SDI and Panasonic, to lithium miners, such as SQM and Chemetall. Several analysts believe that Nissan, with its plans to build battery production in Britain and Europe, represents the best carmaker in which to buy shares to invest in electric cars.
A potentially bloody technology race is under way and mistakes will be made in the stampede, Kanehide Yahata, a CLSA analyst, said. He highlighted the temptation prematurely to view Korean and Chinese producers as the likely winners because there are still huge discrepancies in expertise. Japanese research is eyeing a battery that would allow an 80km drive on a single charge. Korea’s research efforts are focused on developing one that could manage 32km.
“Some automakers, such as Mitsubishi, have missed the point by creating commercially unviable electric vehicles,” he said. “In contrast, Nissan’s Leaf shows great promise. Honda is fretting about what to do while Toyota is quietly treading water. GM is on the wrong scent with the Volt and Chrysler’s plan is just a bluff.”
Toyota’s senior management pointed yesterday to the lithium battery as the “deciding technology” by which Japanese and American carmakers would survive or perish. The supply of lithium batteries is expected to redraw corporate partnerships throughout Asia, particularly in the technology’s heartland of Japan: lithium batteries lie at the centre of the world’s biggest electronics merger between Panasonic and Sanyo.
Nomura Securities analysts predict that lithium will create a new balance of industrial power. “We think the barriers to entry [in battery making] could quickly lower over the next four or five years with the switch to electric and hybrid vehicles the main driver of growth. That could trigger a collapse of the existing business groupings, the adoption of new materials and the deterioration of Japan’s position as the industry pacesetter,” a recent note to investors read.
On lithium’s upstream, the transformation is visible. “In terms of interest and exploration, the lithium industry is experiencing an all-time high. Over the past four months, unclaimed lithium deposits have been snapped up at a rate never seen before,” Simon Moores, an Industrial Minerals analyst, said. The majority of projects, he warned, would end in failure.
Some see a potentially risky side to the boom. On a visit to Tokyo this week, Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, described the coming competition for resources such as lithium as “the next battle we are going to have to take on”.

White House gloats at chamber of commerce exodus over climate bill

• PG&E, Exelon and Apple break with chamber• Climate change bill now before the Senate
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 8 October 2009 23.07 BST
The Obama administration took a deliberate step into the row that has engulfed the business world today, gloating at a mini-exodus from the US chamber of commerce because of its climate change policy.
In the administration’s first comments on the row, the energy secretary, Steven Chu, did not conceal his delight that high-profile companies like California’s PG&E, Exelon and Apple had broken with the chamber because of its opposition to a climate change bill now before the Senate and moves to regulate greenhouse gas emissions by the Environmental Protection Agency.
“I think it’s wonderful,” Chu said.
“I think companies like that - Exelon and others - are saying we have recognised the reality,” he said. “They are saying we can’t be a party to this denial and foot-dragging.”
Not that the chamber is ready to listen. Earlier today, a combative head of the chamber, Thomas Donohue, made it clear he was in no mind to rethink the organisation’s policies because of the high profile defections.
“If people want to attack us, bring em on,” he told reporters.
“We are not changing where we are,” he said. “We’ve thought long and hard about what is important here and we are not going anywhere.”
Donohue went on to accuse environmental organisations of orchestrating a series of defections from the chamber over the last two weeks. “It’s sort of interesting that we have turnover all the time and these four companies sort of woke up one morning all decided they were on their own, going to quit and put it in the newspaper.” In the most bitter defection, Apple this week said the chamber’s resistance to action on global warming was “frustrating”.
Nike, meanwhile, has questioned how the board arrives at policy. The footwear maker - which stepped down from the board - said climate change policy was not discussed at meetings.
Other business groups - such as General Electric - have also taken issue with the chamber’s stand after another official, William Kovacs, called for public hearings on climate change legislation. He compared the hearings to the 1920s Scopes monkey trial about evolution.
Donohue insisted today that the group would support action on climate change - but he argued the bill passed by the house last June and similar measures now before the Senate would harm the US economy.

New polar bear rule sent to White House

Protection for polar bears’ shrinking icy habitat is the subject of a proposed rule sent to the White House by the Interior Department.

The proposed rule, “Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Critical Habitat Designation for the Polar Bear” is the latest step in a long process aimed at shielding the big white bears from the effects of climate change.

Details of the proposed rule were not immediately made public, but it was filed on Monday with the White House.

The Bush administration designated polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, on the grounds that the sea ice they use as hunting platforms is literally melting under their paws.

However, the 2008 threat listing allowed oil and gas companies to operating in the polar bear’s habitat, which environmental groups pointedly criticized as a flawed understanding of the relationship between fossil fuels, climate change and the fate of Arctic wildlife.

In May, the Obama administration said it would keep a Bush-era “polar bear special rule,” which weakens protection for the polar bear’s habitat and plays down links between the threatened status of the species and climate change.

The rule exempts from government review all activities that occur outside the polar bears’ range, which means that individual sources of greenhouse gas emissions that lead to climate change cannot be directly linked to the polar bear’s habitat.

‘ENVIRONMENTAL TRAGEDY’

Obama administration Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on May 8 that the melting of polar bear habitat is “an environmental tragedy of the modern age.”

But Salazar went on to say, “The best course of action for protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act is to wisely implement the current rule, not revoke it at this time.”

Polar bears depend on Arctic sea ice as a platform for hunting seals, their main prey. Malnourished polar bears have more problems reproducing and raising their young. The U.S. Geological Survey has said two-thirds of the world’s polar bears — some 16,000 — could be gone by 2050 if predictions about diminishing Arctic sea ice hold true.

Asked about the new proposed rule, John Kostyack of the National Wildlife Federation said the Obama administration needs to be more “honest with the science than the previous administration.”

“There is extremely strong link between climate change and the decline of the polar bear, and if we hope to conserve the polar bear for future generations, we’re going to have to take some strong steps to reduce the non-climate stressors … the chief one would be oil and gas development,” Kostyack said in a telephone interview.

Arctic sea ice has declined in the last three years to its smallest area since satellite views began in 1979, according to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center. The 2009 summer ice had grown from the previous two years but was still less than in 1979.

“It’s nice to see a little recovery over the past couple years, but there’s no reason to think that we’re headed back to conditions seen back in the 1970s,” the center’s director and senior scientist, Mark Serreze said in a statement on Tuesday. “We still expect to see ice-free summers sometime in the next few decades.”

Source:
Reuters, “New polar bear rule sent to White House“, accessed October 6, 2009

Bangkok diary: acronyms, ambition and underwater meetings

Norway has proposed 40% emissions cuts. Other countries are trying to bail out of Kyoto. And as the heat rises at the Bangkok climate change talks, Ed Miliband gets a thorough basting
Lost in a forest of acronyms
What’s the difference between “sustainable forest management” (SFM) and “sustainable management of forests” (SMF)? A very great deal in the surreal climate change talks here in Bangkok, where the final order of these three letters in the forestry text could make the difference between the global logging industry being subsidised by governments to continue clear-felling Africa and Indonesia, and communities being left to live in strongly protected forests. SFM is the villain – a meaningless greenwash phrase adopted widely by the global logging industry to allow it to carry on business as usual. SMF, however, emphasises conservation and protection and is backed by the likes of Greenpeace and Global Witness, as well as many countries. The problem is that the phrase SFM keeps popping up in the draft texts, courtesy of the EU, and very few diplomats have a clue which one means what.
Ed gets the gauntlet
The politicians are not here, but the G77 group of 130 developing countries is keen to send a message to the UK energy and climate change secretary, Ed Miliband. Ambassador Di-Aping Lumumba of Sudan, chair of the group, is clearly amused by Ed’s statement in the Guardian earlier this week that the talks are “too important to be left to the formal negotiators”. Lumumba said: “Britain are not the bad guys here. I would say the current British government just lacks the resolve. The challenge now starts with Ed Miliband. Either you are the one to direct here, or you are a general whose troops do not address your will.” Quite a few people in the Foreign Office and even the cabinet probably know Lumumba, because he used to work for McKinsey and has an Oxford doctorate. But that doesn’t stop him pointing the finger at the west: “Developed countries are driven here by national interests and are being pulled by very small lobby groups, and the result is no progress and a race to the bottom.”
At last, some ambition
At least Norway is showing real leadership. Yesterday it came up with proposals to increase its emission cuts to 30-40% – the most ambitious target of all developed countries and what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says is needed if we are to avoid more than a 2C rise in temperature. The talks have, so far, failed to extract any other pledges from rich countries. That leaves Annex 1 (industrialised) countries promising just 13-21% cuts, if you exclude the tentative US proposal, and a meagre 11-18% with it.
A very diplomatic row
There’s restrained diplomatic fury in the halls here over rich countries’ moves to bail out of the existing Kyoto protocol in favour of a brand-new, weaker agreement that the US – and countries including Canada and Russia – would prefer. NGOs of all hues are piling in behind the G77 countries to try to save the Kyoto protocol. Oxfam accused rich countries of not just trying to change the rules of the game, but trying to change the game itself. “Fifteen years ago, rich countries agreed they would take the lead. In 2007 in Bali, they reaffirmed their commitments would be greater than developing countries. But here they are trying to force the G77 and China to take actions that would be unfair considering the gaping hole in rich country commitments,” stormed Antonio Hill, Oxfam’s senior climate adviser. The WWF piled in with a cunning plan to keep Kyoto alive with a second parallel treaty that would cover future US and developing country emissions. Which is fine, except for the fact that the poorest countries might not all agree to being in the same room as the US.
No country is an island
Britain has gone out of its way in its climate change preparations to help the weakest countries, even going as far as setting up a separate political grouping of 20 “most vulnerable” nations, mostly small Caribbean and Pacific island states that stand to go under with any sea level rises. But is there low political intent behind this? The word in the Bangkok bars is that this is a sophisticated way to split the quarrelsome but so far united G77 countries at the end of the talks when the politicians fly in, the horse-trading starts and the promises of aid and development cash are made. Countries such as India and South Africa are angry at not being included as vulnerable (”Do we not bleed too?” asked one diplomat).
Maldives meeting
Can Miliband swim? The question arises because there is idle, unconfirmed chatter in Bangkok that Britain intends to convene a November meeting in the Maldives of all the heads of states of the vulnerable countries to prepare their positions – and perhaps their cheques – before Copenhagen. The Maldives cabinet has been practising its diving skills for a meeting underwater later this month. If the British gathering goes ahead in November, too, politicians should maybe pack their wetsuits.

Cost of going green: £7,000 a home

Published Date: 09 October 2009
By SHÂN ROSS
IT WILL cost £16 billion to make homes in Scotland energy- efficient over the next decade, according to a new report.
The Scottish Government’s new action plan on energy efficiency, published yesterday, revealed the price of steps such as improving insulation and replacing inefficient boilers.It estimated that this would cost £7,000 per home – a total of £16 billion.Last night, environmental campaigners WWF Scotland said it would be “money well spent”. The figure, in “A Consultation on the Energy Efficiency Action Plan for Scotland” came as finance secretary John Swinney announced a £2 million pilot loans scheme to help pay for home- efficiency measures. The cash is aimed at helping to cut carbon emissions from homes by 42 per cent by 2020. Interest-free loans of between £500 and £10,000 will be available. Mr Swinney said: “The new scheme will provide practical measures that can make the quickest impacts – interest-free loans to upgrade insulation, replace inefficient boilers or install double glazing or small-scale renewables.”Elizabeth Leighton, senior policy officer at WWF Scotland, said: ” Scotland’s homes account for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore making them low-carbon is key to Scotland achieving its 42 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020. “Improving home energy efficiency is a win for not only for carbon savings but for lifting people out of fuel poverty and creating thousands of green jobs.”The £16 billion price tag sounds a massive sum, but it would be spread over a decade and the cash will come from a mix of sources including energy companies and householders as well as the public purse.” Campaign group Friends of the Earth Scotland welcomed the launch of the consultation but called for more cash and regulation to cut energy use.Chief executive Duncan McLaren said: “The government’s figure of £7,000 per home may seem eye-watering but compared to the average house value in Scotland, it’s a small investment to make homes fit for the future.”Government spending of at least £100 million per year is necessary to deliver energy savings and jobs at the scale required.”The Scottish Greens described the plans as “underwhelming and unsatisfactory”. Patrick Harvie MSP said: “SNP ministers want us to believe they understand the benefits and opportunities real energy efficiency can bring. “Their rhetoric may be excellent, but their actual commitments remain a spectacular disappointment. The loan scheme they’re proposing is not even close to the scheme we proposed in last year’s Budget. It’s a drop in the ocean, a bare minimum so ministers can say with a half-straight face that they’ve done what they promised.”Mr Harvie claimed that even if every penny was spent on delivering energy-efficiency measures, it would not get the job done in “300 Scottish homes out of more than two million”.He added: “To make it work, to make a real difference to those with hard-to-treat homes, we’d need to see a fund worth tens of millions.”

Hatfield ‘clean coal’ plant set to win £165m from EU

Robin Pagnamenta, Energy Editor

A “clean coal” power plant at Hatfield colliery in Yorkshire is in pole position to collect £165 million in funding from the European Commission, it was claimed last night.
The Powerfuel plant near Doncaster, which is co-owned by Richard Budge, the mining entrepreneur, appeared to have won against stiff competition from companies including E.ON, the German power group, which announced on Thursday that it was delaying plans for a new coal-fired station at Kingsnorth, Kent, for up to three years.
E.ON claimed the decision had been taken because of falling electricity demand in the UK caused by the recession. But Chris Davies, a Liberal Democrat MEP who steered carbon-capture and storage (CCS) regulations through the European Parliament, claimed the decision was instead linked to the group’s failure to secure European funding. He added that a formal announcement from the European Parliament was due shortly.
Powerfuel’s location at Hatfield has been touted as a potential starting point for a “cluster” of CCS plants where emissions from a string of industrial sites on Humberside could be piped into the North Sea for permanent storage in former gas fields. National Grid has thrown its weight behind the scheme.

Separately, a row was brewing yesterday over whether E.ON’s decision to delay its Kingsnorth project disqualified it from winning a separate funding package worth an estimated £1 billion from the UK’s Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
Both E.ON and the Government insisted yesterday that the company could still be eligible for the money, even though the delay leaves it unable to meet a 2014 deadline set by the Government for opening a clean-coal demonstration plant. One of the other three contenders, Scottish Power, which is trying to build a clean-coal plant at its existing power station in Longannet, Fife, said it was “seeking clarification” from the DECC on whether E.ON was still involved in the CCS competition.
Nick Horler, ScottishPower’s chief executive, added: “If other bids fall away our consortium is happy to sit down with the UK Government and agree the way to deliver their requirements of commercial-scale CCS to their original timescale of 2014.” But a spokesman for the Government said: “Nothing has changed with our CCS competition. E.ON has not withdrawn.”
Meanwhile, a government adviser warned yesterday that E.ON’s decision to shelve its plans for the Kingsnorth plant is set to make Britain more reliant on gas for generating electricity — even as domestic supplies of the fuel are running out.
The share of UK electricity produced by burning gas is set to soar from 35 per cent today to as high as 50 per cent by 2012, according to Redpoint, an energy consultancy that advises the Decc. Philip Grant, director at Redpoint, said that gas-fired stations were most likely to fill the yawning supply gap that will open up in about 2015 as a quarter of the country’s coal and oil-fired plants are set to close to meet new European pollution rules. He warned that this would further expose UK homes to volatile wholesale gas prices.
Tony Hayward , the chief executive of BP, has claimed that CCS technology will not be commercial for at least ten years. Speaking at the World Gas Conference in Buenos Aires, he said gas offered the cheapest and quickest solution to cutting carbon emissions.

Redd comes with risks but there is no other choice than to try

By rewarding transparency and accuracy, we can make the UN’s forest protection scheme work
Erik Solheim
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 8 October 2009 13.07 BST
This week, the Guardian warned that a UN scheme to reward developing countries for protecting their forests in the name of carbon reductions – known as Redd (Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation) – could be “a recipe for corruption and will be hijacked by organised crime without safeguards“.
The Norwegian government, the largest financial contributor to Redd, is well aware of the risks of the scheme – but it has no choice about whether to act. The destruction of these forests produces 17% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions, or more than the entire EU put together. If managed correctly, Redd could be a catalyst for improved forest governance in general. It could also provide vital support to local communities and indigenous populations, protect biodiversity and water resources, and help countries adapt to climate change.
The question is not whether to implement Redd, but how.
The case of Brazil is encouraging. So far, the country has reduced deforestation by more than half since 2005. The introduction of a publically available satellite system makes the authorities capable of detecting illegal logging activities as they happen. The government’s offensive has led to more than 700 arrests – among them many corrupt public servants – and the confiscation of 1.4m cubic metres of illegal timber. Brazil has set up the Amazon Fund – administered in a transparent and inclusive manner by the Brazilian development bank – through which to channel external support. Norway has committed up to $1bn by 2015, given adequate progress.
We’re also working with Guyana – a country which faces very different challenges – to design an approach that takes focuses on transparency, verifiable results and improved governance.
Based on this and other experience, Norway has proposed a Redd mechanism under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which we believe could go a long way in reducing the risks we all agree are real.
Firstly, a phased approach. Countries would initially receive some financial support to develop national Redd strategies, to put in place environmental and social safeguards, and to develop credible systems – both for monitoring results and handling finances in a transparent manner. These would include robust anti-corruption measures – and only when this hurdle is passed would the country be eligible for large-scale payments.
Secondly, Redd should be managed at country rather than project level. We believe that many of the issues pointed out in the Guardian are exacerbated by a poorly regulated micromanagement approach. At a national level, we would be better positioned to spot attempts to exploit the system, and to hold governments accountable for both emission reductions and negative side-effects. It would also avoid rewarding conservation in one area while deforesting activities move next door (so-called “leakage”). To avert international leakage, the mechanism must provide sufficient incentives to motivate most tropical forest countries to join.
Thirdly, large-scale Redd payments would be based on real emission reductions, and increase with the accuracy of measurements. This approach would provide an incentive to develop monitoring capabilities, and to address more promptly the forest governance problems that stand in the way of payments. Meanwhile, developed countries would verifiably get what they paid for.
There is still more carbon in forests than in the atmosphere, and we have no alternative but to try to keep it there. I have no illusions this will be easy; however, when it comes to greenhouse gases, there is no such thing as business as usual – either we deal with this together, or the battle against climate change will be lost.
• Erik Solheim is the minister of the environment for Norway.