(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
[climate] The climate challenge is significantly greater than the special interests that nature conservationists often represent. As far as I'm concerned, I give you how many polar bears there are. But I care a lot about whether people survive, says billionaire and businessman Jens Ulltveit-Moe.
This week, he will speak for an assembly that is just a penny – at the national environmental conference GRIP Forum 2007. There, the former NHO leader will, among other things, sharply criticize what he experiences as backward nature conservationists.
- When in Norway today a fight is fought against further development of hydropower, against wind turbines, against almost any kind of change – then it helps to downplay the really big challenge of our time, namely global warming. When the Tourist Association is against high-voltage power lines, I can understand that. I also do not think they are particularly pretty, but it is a trifle in the big picture, says Ulltveit-Moe.
Ulltveit-Moe generally thinks there is too much talk and is done too little on the environmental front, and has decided to take the lead as a good example. To Dagens Næringsliv earlier this year he stated that he aims to have 40 percent of his investments invested in "environmentally friendly companies".
Well and good, that. But what has his companies done to the environment over the past year?
- Among other things, I have invested in the development of bioethanol in Brazil. We cultivate old cattle land and extract from sugar cane, the only agricultural product that has a real environmental benefit. Bioethanol is the cheapest alternative form of energy in the world today, and emissions are 70 percent lower than petrol. The only problem is that trade barriers make it impossible to import anything special from it to Europe and the USA, says Ulltveit-Moe.
In Brazil, about 70 percent of new cars are ethanol-adapted. That will push itself forward in Norway, too, says Ulltveit-Moe. He recently had a meeting with Environment Minister Erik Solheim about bioethanol. Ulltveit-Moe is pleased that Solheim has now become Minister of the Environment, but believes the ability for political environmental leadership in Norway is generally modest.
- There are very specific things that should be done: Increased petrol prices. Increased electricity prices. But you can imagine how unpopular it would be to raise electricity prices in Norway. The problem is, in a sense, that most people do not care about the environment. And politicians are very careful about what moves most people. Unfortunately, I think we need to experience it more on the body before the crisis is recognized.
Secretary General of the Norwegian Nature Conservation Association, Jan Thomas Odegard, thinks Ulltveit-Moe's criticism is meaningless.
- The environmental movement has been at the forefront of informing about and warning about the development we see today, without business actors such as Ulltveit-Moe having taken it seriously. He should rather give us the credit we deserve for resisting at times ridicule. He shoots at the messenger.
Nor does Odegard agree with the production Ulltveit-Moe gives of the environmental movement countering wind turbines and power.
- We have been the foremost champions of renewable energy for decades. When the business community and the authorities have finally understood the benefits of this, it must be done in a sensible way. We require county-specific plans, so that other values can be taken into account, such as aesthetics, biological diversity, tourism and the local population.
