In a letter to the Slovenian government, the company’s lawyers described the government’s actions as “arbitrary and unreasonable”. Environmentalists said it was the company whose behaviour was “outrageous”.

Friends of the Earth Slovenia accused Ascent of endangering the country’s drinking water supply and urged the new Slovenian government not to bow to pressure.

Paul de Clerck, economic justice coordinator for Friends of the Earth Europe, said: “It’s a scandal that, amid a climate and environmental emergency, a country like Slovenia can be sued for doing the right thing, protecting its water and environment from destructive fracking.”

London-based Ascent Resources is taking legal action using the UK-Slovenia bilateral investment treaty and the controversial multilateral Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), which the UK and Slovenia have both signed up to.

Gas curse: Mozambique’s multi-billion dollar gamble on LNG

The ECT has previously been used by a German energy company to fight the Dutch government over coal phaseout plans and by a Swedish company to sue the German state over its policies against nuclear and coal power.

In 2007, Ascent entered a joint venture with a state-owned Slovenian company called Geonergo to extract gas from Petišovci in eastern Slovenia and sell it to Croatian company INA. It says it has since invested €50m (US$59m) in the project.

In 2017, the company decided it needed to inject water underground to stimulate gas flow, known as fracking, and applied for government permission. Ascent’s lawyers say that they did not need to apply for this but Geonergo did so anyway “in an abundance of caution”.

In March 2019, the Slovenian Environment Agency (ARSO) ruled that the company must conduct an environmental impact assesment because the site is close to water sources.

Ascent’s lawyers said this decision went against expert opinions from several other government bodies and was “manifestly arbitrary and unreasonable”. They add that the Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning’s public criticism of the company and leaks from ARSO to the press show that ARSO was “biased” and its decision was “politically motivated”.

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Geonergo challenged ARSO’s decision but, in May 2020, the Slovenian court ruled against the firms. In July, Ascent’s London lawyers told Slovenia they were taking legal action.

Lidija Živčič, from Friends of the Earth Slovenia, told Climate Home News she feared the Slovenian government elected in March 2020 would reverse the previous government’s opposition to fracking.

The previous government, led by Marjan Šarec, had been preparing a law which would ban fracking. It was voted out before the law could pass and, Živčič said, Janez Janša’s new government seems much more in favour of fracking.

If fracking went ahead in Petišovci, Živčič said, the nearby sources of drinking water and thermal waters could be affected by the fracking chemicals. In other countries, poorly-built shallow fracking wells have injected gas into underground freshwater aquifers.

Fracking could also damage nearby ecosystems and would contribute to global climate change, Živčič said. The site is near the borders of Hungary and Croatia.

Japan blocks green reform of major energy investment treaty

Friends of the Earth has brought attention to the case at the same time as members of the ECT are negotiating ‘modernisation’ of the treaty, which dates from the early 1990s.

The European Union wants to improve governments’ ‘right to regulate’ on climate change without facing legal action under ECT but nations like Japan and Kazakhstan are resisting reform.

Luxembourg’s energy minister has said his nation and others could leave the ECT if its environmental protections are not improved. Russia and Italy have already left the treaty after it was used to sue them.

An Australian mining company called Prairie Mining also announced ECT legal action this week. It says the Polish government has unfairly damaged its coal mining prospects by not renewing one of its concessions and granting part of another to a rival firm.

The post Fracking company sues Slovenia over ‘unreasonable’ environmental protections appeared first on Climate Home News.

Floods in Tewkesbury in 2007 (Source: Flickr/cheltenhamborough)

By Sophie Yeo

Cuts to government spending on UK flood defences will cost £3billion in damage that could have been avoided, putting houses and businesses at risk across the country.

The government’s independent Committee on Climate Change says that, even based on modest assumptions, limited spending over recent years will lead to future flood damage that will cost the same amount to repair as the disastrous flooding that hit the UK in the summer of 2007.

The advisory body derided recent claims by the government that total spending has increased over the most recent spending period.

“Not enough is being spent, and we can expect the number of households at flood risk and damages from flood events to be on the increase,” the committee wrote in a blog post.

Total central government expenditure dropped by £30 million over the current four-year spending period, compared with the £2371 million spend between 2007-2011.

A question mark has hung over the Coalition’s spending on flood defences since storms brought chaos across the country, prompting the Thames Flood Barrier to be raised eleven times in eleven days.

Heavy rainfall brought misery to thousands across the UK, as rivers burst their banks and water breached defences.

Campaigners have accused the government of cutting spending on vital services and failing to take into account the future impacts of climate change, while environment secretary Owen Paterson has rigorously assured them that spending has actually increased.

Spending shortfall

The latest figures from the Committee on Climate Change point out that the government’s projections of a 4.4% growth in spending is undermined because these figures assume external contributions to the pot of money that has yet to be secured, as well as failing to take inflation into account.

As a result, money flowing directly from central government will be less than it was in the previous four-year funding period, despite an extra £120million pledged by Chancellor George Osborne in the 2012 Autumn Statement.

In addition, the £129 million provided to local authorities ostensibly to bolster flood defences is not ringfenced, which means that councils are free to spend it as they wish.

Figures suggest that more than half of this money has not been spent on local flood risk management, yet the full amount is still counted in the government’s official flood expenditure.

In total, the Committee on Climate Change predicts that an extra three quarters of a billion pounds is needed to stave off the risk of increased flooding – the greatest risk to the UK as the world warms with climate change, causing greater storms surges as sea levels rise. Every £1 spend today on flood defences on average prevents £8 in future flood damages.

“The Government has left a gaping half-billion pound hole in the country’s flood defences by cutting investment when climate change will make flooding worse,” says Guy Shrubsole, a climate change campaigner at Friends of the Earth.

“Today’s figures from the CCC are clear that more needs to be spent on flood defence and that makes Owen Paterson about as suited to defending Britain from rising seas as King Canute.

“David Cameron must intervene to show he’s serious about protecting households and businesses from worsening flood risk – by investing enough to keep pace with climate change and commissioning an independent review of the country’s preparedness.”

The post UK budget cuts could lead to flooding damage worth £3bn appeared first on Climate Home News.

This week in Washington, DC, US Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern is organizing the Ministerial Meeting on Mobilizing Climate Finance.

This invitation-only event, hosted for finance and climate ministries of select donor countries, typifies the extraordinary emphasis rich governments are placing on private finance as the solution to meeting developing countries’ climate needs.

Unfortunately, they are trumpeting the private sector as a solution without first thoroughly investigating whether or not the real needs of ordinary people in lower income countries actually can be met through supporting private financiers and companies.

It is with this in mind that Friends of the Earth U.S. and the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance are releasing the report, Pro-poor Climate Finance: Is There a Role for Private Finance in the Green Climate Fund?

Developed countries committed to raise $100 billion a year to fill the GCF by 2020

Policymakers concerned with international climate finance, particularly board members of the nascent Green Climate Fund, should first be asking the question posed in our report: what are the needs of developing countries, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, as they confront the climate crisis?

Only then can we consider whether private finance and support for the private sector help equitably and effectively meet those needs, and uphold the requirements of the GCF Governing Instrument and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Rather than lionize the role of the private sector, our report instead de-constructs ideological notions of “leveraging” private finance and examines the track record of the private sector, private financiers and development finance institutions in developing countries.

It concludes that private finance will be especially difficult to deploy responsibly in low and lower-middle income countries, as well as in marginalized communities in all developing countries.

Further, private climate finance cannot be a substitute for direct public finance; adaptation in particular is likely to offer few commercially profitable opportunities for private financiers.

Forgotten sector

It recognizes that micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are the most important economic actors and provide most of the employment in developing countries, and that directing finance towards these enterprises can be extremely difficult.

Most MSMEs focus on subsistence, with high informality rates, low returns and low investment volumes. As a result, international donors and financiers often ignore them.

Without rigorous and well-articulated effort to address this dynamic, the GCF would be likely to do the same in its support for the private sector.

When development finance institutions have tried to respond to the challenges of working with MSMEs, they have tended to use financial intermediaries to deploy funds. (Financial intermediaries may include commercial and investment banks, private equity and venture capital funds, microcredit institutions, insurance and other financial institutions.)

Accountability

But extensive evidence demonstrates that a reliance on financial intermediaries frequently results in deeply inadequate monitoring and transparency, poor development outcomes, compromised environmental and social standards and serious deficiencies in accountability to affected communities and other stakeholders.

The report concludes that the GCF should approach private companies and financiers slowly and with a high degree of caution, and only engage them to the extent that they can guarantee compliance with high standards on environmental, social and development effectiveness; implement robust processes designed to address financial, social and environmental risks; and produce effective mitigation and adaptation outcomes.

We hope that Mr. Stern and other government representatives attending the climate finance ministerial can seriously take into account the findings and recommendations of the report.

The focus of the meeting should start and end with how policymakers can support quality livelihoods for pastoralists in Tanzania, for example, or wastepickers in India – rather than how to guarantee high returns for Wall Street and the City of London.

Karen Orenstein is an International policy analyst at Friends of the Earth USA. Download the Pro-poor Climate Finance report here.

The post Can private finance really fill the Green Climate Fund? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Doubling global hydropower production could save as much as 3 billion tonnes of CO2, according to a new report by energy watchdog the IEA and the Brazilian Government.

The study claims that developing countries in particular have massive potential to develop new large hydropower plants.

Half of the global potential is in Asia. Africa has the most under-developed market so far with 92% of feasible sites unexploited.

“Hydroelectricity is a very cost-effective technology already,” said Richard H. Jones, deputy executive director, IEA.

“However, new developments face tough financial challenges. Governments must create a favourable climate for industry investment when designing electricity markets,” warned Jones.

The Hoover Dam has contributed to water shortage issues in downstream US States as well as across the border in Mexico. (Source: Creative Commons/Wili Hybrid)

Hydropower is already the largest renewable energy source globally with four times more capacity than wind power, according to figures from the REN21 industry group.

“Large and small hydropower projects can improve access to modern energy services, alleviate poverty and foster social and economic development, especially for local communities” said Albert Geber de Melo, general-director of the Brazilian Electric Energy Research Centre (CEPEL).

Hydropower accounts for approximately 90% of Brazil’s electricity, so its support for more investment in this form of electricity generation is no surprise.

The government is currently investing in the multi-billion dollar Belo Monte dam project in the Amazon, despite heavy criticism from environmentalists and groups representing indigenous tribes.

This is not a problem unique to Brazil – campaign groups are active around the world in opposition to big hydropower projects in the basis of the forests, land and people that they displace.

“If the IEA wants to tackle climate change and poverty, it needs to stop fixating on large-scale projects that only benefit big investors, and instead re-read its own 2010 World Energy Outlook which calls for decentralised renewable energy that can be owned by communities,” said Pascoe Sabido, sustainable energy advisor with Friends of the Earth.

“The IEA is predicting big emissions reductions from doubling hydroelectricity, but all the recent science shows that’s not the case,” Sabido told RTCC.

“Large dams are far from a carbon neutral source of electricity when you take into account the flooded forests that were previously sucking carbon out of the atmosphere. As they decompose, they release large quantities of methane which recent reports show could be up to 50 times worse for the climate than carbon dioxide.”

Dams also affect the downstream water supply creating diplomatic tensions with countries further down river.

Egypt depends almost entirely on the Nile for its water supplies and is currently in a dispute with Ethiopia over its proposal for a 6GW hydropower plant on the Nile.

Related articles:

Renewable energy has “come of age” says IEA report

Rio+20: Investing in Hydropower in Mozambique

California’s climate change fight could increase drought risk

The post Hydropower could double by 2050, say IEA and Brazilian government appeared first on Climate Home News.

The first meeting of a new fund for climate action has been overshadowed by fears that the private sector, rather than impacted communities, will drive the decision making process.

A report by Friends of the Earth US, GAIA and the Institute for Policy Studies has raised concerns that companies and donor governments will take over the process of distributing money from the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

The fund was approved at the 2010 Cancun COP16 climate talks. The aim of the mechanism is to channel $100 billion a year towards the world’s poorest nations in an attempt to help them cope with the effects of climate change.

Progress on developing the GCF’s powers was blocked during the Bonn climate talks in May – with developing and developed countries blaming each other for the impasse.

Following a delay with the Green Climate Fund's progress in Bonn earlier in the year, its first meeting takes place this week in Geneva. (Source: Flickr/UNFCCC)

“We have seen this play out before, and it’s not a pretty picture: time and again, public money that is supposed to help the world’s poor has been diverted into the pockets of polluting, multinational corporations and Wall Street,” the report’s authors said in a statement.

They are concerned that the developing communities that would benefit from projects backed by the GCF are being excluded from discussions.

As the board of the GCF meets for the first time in Geneva, NGOs are also unhappy with their observer status at the meeting.

Brandon Wu, Senior Policy Analyst at ActionAid points out that part of the reason the GCF was developed was to tackle community engagement and transparency issues with existing climate financing channels.

“To do that we need to ensure that as many civil society organisations, observers and communities need to participate in the process,” he told RTCC.

The “no objection clause” in the GCF’s rule could be problematic. It says that observers must be recognised by the Chair, which is standard, but it adds, as long as no board member objects, that could be problematic,” adds Wu.

The meetings will not be webcast further impinging on the transparency of the GCF.

GCF board members and representatives from select NGOs met informally on the eve of the fund’s first formal proceedings to discuss the grievances.

The absence of transparency has added fuel to their claims that the GCF will not be accountable for the money it allocates opening it up for exploitation by the private sector.

Related stories:

The price of climate change: What can the carbon economy do to cut emissions?

Crowdfunding: A new source of finance for sustainability and renewable energy

Will the billions needed for climate change finance be found in Doha?

The post Green Climate Fund board meets for first time amid controversy over transparency appeared first on Climate Home News.

– The day’s top climate change stories as chosen by RTCC
– Tweet @RTCCnewswire and use #RTCCLive hashtag
– Send your thoughts to jp@rtcc.org
– Updated at 0900, 1300, 1700 BST (GMT+1)

Tuesday 3 July
Last updated: 1700 BST

Latest News

There are fresh calls for the EU to bolster its CO2 reduction targets. European Commission President Manuel Barroso has joined Friends of the Earth (see below) and UK Climate Change Minister Greg Barker in calling for a more ambitious cut of 30%.

The UK launched its centre-piece policy on residential energy efficiency. The much-maligned Green Deal offers loans to home owners to improve the nations creaking housing stock. Unfortunately, with interest rates of 7.5% (compared to 1% in Germany), the fanfare has not reached far beyond Westminster.

Pakistan’s new Ministry of Climate Change has revealed its plans. It believes the country faces an adaptation bill of $14bn each year for the next 40 years.

Climate change has been eclipsed by water and air pollution as the number one environmental concern in the US. The proportion of people listing it as their number one environmental worry has fallen from 33% in 2007 to 18% today. That compares to 29% citing air and water quality.

Scientists in Australia have detected a sharp rise in sea levels. They’ve backed up results from tidal gauges with satellite data to add weight to their estimate of 1.9mm a year. We’re just amazed anyone in Australia can get anything done, we’re still rolling in the aisles at one of the most bizarre TV interviews ever given…

Big question

What would happen if carbon dioxide leaked into the ocean from a CCS project? RTCC_tierney investigates…

Top Tweets

France’s coal slag heaps join Pyramids on list of UNESCO world treasures bit.ly/R0dPZU

— carbon meme (@carbonmeme) July 3, 2012

Energy, food, health, peace & security are today’s leading global challenges. Their common denominator? Water

— UNESCO (@UNESCO) July 3, 2012

RT @GreenpeaceUK: 391,000 of you have signed up to #SaveTheArctic! Think we can get to 400,000 today? Sign up now: SaveTheArctic.org

— Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) July 3, 2012

Video of the day

This escaped a lot of people’s attention given that it happened on the eve of Rio+20, but Senator John Kerry delivered a bruising 54 minute speech on the senate floor on climate change. Brave.

Stat of the day

$43 million – IBM’s energy efficiency savings according to its latest CSR report.

Picture of the day

Friends of the Earth Europe has set its sights on German Chancellor Angela Merkel…they want her to push the rest of the EU for a 30% targeted reduction CO2. The current goal is 20%.

The post Climate Live: Calls for EU to adopt ambitious Co2 targets, climate change falls down US environmental agenda & sharp sea level rises seen in Oz appeared first on Climate Home News.

Baby palms in Borneo used to develop Neste Oil's sustainable palm oil (Source: Neste)

A new study has estimated that the UK’s biofuels policy will cost consumers £100bn in additional fuel costs by 2020.

The research, commissioned by Friends of the Earth and ActionAid UK, also stated that the policy would increase rather than reduce carbon emissions in the country.

“The UK must scrap its biofuel targets,” said Meredith Alexander, head of policy with ActionAid UK. “Motorists, the environment and poor people in developing countries will bear the brunt of this ill-conceived directive.

“Increased biofuel production will have disastrous consequences as food prices are forced up and millions of people go hungry and lose their land.”

Biofuels have attracted controversy in the past with agricultural land used for food being displaced by energy crops.

Kenneth Richter, Friends of the Earth’s biofuels campaigner said the policy would do nothing for the country’s economy.

“This money would be better spent on improving our train and bus services, promoting cleaner cars, and making cycling a much safer option for short journeys – saving people cash every day,” added Richter.

EU policy doubt

The report followed the declaration by EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard that existing biofuel policy in Brussels, formed in 2003 and 2009, was flawed.

The EU Renewable Energy Directive calls for European transport fuel to include a 10% portion from renewable sources by 2020.

Speaking to Euractiv.com she said: “The knowledge and the science were not that well developed at that time, so now we have been struggling to try to get a defined indirect land use factor in.

“[The Commission] has no problems with sustainable biofuels – and there are sustainable biofuels – but there are also biofuels where you could say what it takes away from CO2 is not less than fossil fuels, in some instances it’s even more.”

“And that’s of course not a clever strategy if we ask member states to replace fossils fuels with something that is not better than fossil fuels.”

One option undergoing research is to find alternatives to using food crops for biofuels and to instead use plant material that does not enter the food chain and can be grown on a poorer quality of land.

“It is crucial to point out that biofuel crop production systems differ greatly in environmental impacts,” Dr Angela Karp, our head of bioenergy at Rothamsted Research Institute told RTCC. “The way forward is not to stop biofuels completely. Instead the use of high-input food crops for liquid transport fuels needs to be replaced by the use of crop residues and low-input perennial crops with multiple environmental benefits.”

“Policy must continually emphasise the changes needed and tie incentives to improved GHG reductions and environmental performance of biofuels,” added Karp.

In November last year a report from within the biofuels industry suggested that they offered a better option to reduce transport-related emissions.

The post New report says biofuels will add £100bn to fuel bills appeared first on Climate Home News.

The UK High Court has ruled that government decisions to slash feed-in-tariffs for solar panels on homes were ‘legally flawed’.

Mr Justice Mitting’s decision means there could be a judicial review which would force the UK’s Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to delay its plans to implement new tariffs.

Friends of the Earth (FoE) and solar companies Solarcentury and HomeSun took the government to court to test whether the changes were lawful.

The proposed new tariff of 21p per kilowatt-hour, reduced from 43p, was expected to come into effect from 1 April.

But on 31 October 2011 DECC announced a 50% reduction in payments to households and communities generating electricity through solar power.  The government said it would be paid to anyone who installed their solar panels after 12 December.

It gave six weeks’ notice before the cut-off date – which arrived before the end of a consultation on the issue.

Speaking after the announcement, Andy Aktins from Friends of the Earth said: “We believe the decision is premature, unfair and unlawful.

“These botched and illegal plans have cast a huge shadow over the solar industry, jeopardising thousands of jobs.”

“DECC has created chaos”

The UK tariff saw a ten-fold increase in installations from 2010 to 2011 with 500 MW installed in the last year

Solarcentury’s chairman Jeremy Leggett said: “We hope this ruling will prevent ministers rushing through damaging changes to clean energy subsidies – giving solar firms a much-needed confidence boost.

“The Court has stopped Government abusing its power but it doesn’t make up for the fact that DECC has created chaos for the renewable energy industry as a whole, and not just solar.

“Solarcentury was very reluctant to take this legal challenge but DECC gave us no choice. All of this could have been avoided if DECC had done a proper consultation last summer, as they promised, and engaged constructively with the solar industry.

UK Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker responded to today’s High Court ruling on the proposed changes to solar feed in tariffs:

“We disagree with the Court’s decision. We will be seeking an appeal and hope to secure a hearing as soon as possible. Regardless of today’s outcome, the current high tariffs for solar PV are not sustainable and changes need to be made in order to protect the budget which is funded by consumers through their energy bills.”

The decision comes a day after the independent Committee on Climate Change warned the UK’s flagship home energy-efficiency project the Green Deal could fail, predicting that just 10% of a possible six million lofts would be insulated as a result of the policy.

Germany has installed 18000 MW of solar energy capacity since it introduced its generous feed in tarrif. Changes to the UK tariff saw a ten-fold increase in installations from 2010 to 2011 with 500 MW installed in the last year, according to IMS Research.

Steve Blume, Vice President Public Affairs of the International Solar Energy Society (ISES) explains why feed-in-tariffs are so important in the solar industry:

The post UK court rules solar cuts ‘legally flawed’ appeared first on Climate Home News.

Protest for climate justice (Source: Michael Gwyther-Jones/flickr)

COP17 will get underway on Monday amidst increasingly urgent calls of concern that the conference will not go far enough to reach a new deal to follow Kyoto when it expires at the end of 2012.

Diplomats and negotiators from around the world will be joined in Durban, by key players in the green movement, aiming to put pressure on the conference parties to go further than expected and agree a lasting deal.

The Occupy movement, which has seen camps set up in London, New York and a number of other cities around the world, is also planning to make its presence felt in Durban, protesting against market-based solutions to global warming.

RTCC has been speaking to some of these groups to see what they hoped the conference will offer.

We’ll be reporting from outside the conference venue tomorrow and on Monday morning, as the summit gets underway – stay tuned for all the latest developments.

Friends of the Earth:

Executive Director of Friends of the Earth UK, Andy Atkins: “Over recent years we’ve been sleepwalking towards a climate disaster – it seem we’ve now broken into a sprint. The world must wake up to the enormous threat we all face and agree tough international action at the UN climate talks in South Africa.

“The wealthiest nations must take a lead by agreeing legally-binding cuts to wean their economies off gas, coal and oil – and providing funds for poorer countries to develop cleanly. The time for excuses is over as climate change is already starting to bite – it’s time for real international leadership.”

350.org:

Jamie Henn Communications Director at 350.org: “It’s a good thing that South Africa has a strong history of social movements, because that’s exactly what the world needs in order to make progress on reaching a deal to address catastrophic climate change. We’ve seen that the most important ingredient missing from the UN Climate Talks is political will. Creating that political will is going to take some real pressure, both inside the negotiations and out in the streets.”

Christian Aid:

In their COP17 briefing, Christian Aid said: “Christian Aid would like parties to agree a provisional date for a second commitment period to enter into force. This would ensure that countries continue to be bound by the commitments they have made and that there is no gap caused by waiting for a new agreement to be ratified and come into force.

“Developing countries should oppose the creation of a single treaty under the Convention to replace the Kyoto Protocol until necessary safeguards guaranteeing adequacy, equity, historical responsibility, and a science – and rule – based system have been secured, and it becomes clear that all developed countries, including the US, will agree to be bound by terms that are fair. Such safeguards could be incorporated into any decision giving countries the necessary mandate to establish a new instrument.”

Oxfam

Kelly Dent, Senior Climate Change Advisor for Oxfam: “From the Horn of Africa and South East Asia to Russia and Afghanistan, a year of floods, droughts, and extreme heat has helped push tens of millions of people into hunger and poverty. This will only get worse as climate change gathers pace and agriculture feels the heat. Governments must act now in Durban to protect our food supply and save millions from slipping into hunger and poverty.”

“Durban will not delivery everything that is required of an effective global response to climate change. But governments must build on the past, by continuing Kyoto, planning for a future legal deal to further slash emissions before 2020, and by mobilising the finance poor people need now to cope with climate change.”

WWF

In their COP17 briefing WWF International said: “WWF believes that COP17 in Durban presents governments with an important opportunity to lay the basis for a transition to a new and ambitious climate regime that will not only reflect what the science says is required, but will also reflect a changing world, in which the old distinctions between developing and developed countries are being redefined.

“Leaders need to recognise the Durban COP as a crucial tipping point in efforts to address runaway climate change, and to use their political resourcefulness to grasp this unique opportunity. Because ultimately there are more opportunities than risks in ensuring that we have a successful outcome in Durban. The people of Africa and the world will be watching.”

You can contact the author of this story @rtcc_tierney

The post The green movement’s hopes for Durban appeared first on Climate Home News.