<p>On September 23, the governments of Liberia and Norway announced that they had entered into a deal under which Liberia will become the first nation to completely halt deforestation in exchange for Norwegian development aid. Norway has agreed to pay $150 million in exchange for the halting of deforestation in Liberia by 2020. The deal was announced at the UN Climate Summit in New York. While Liberia’s forests are not as large as other countries’, its forests represent a significant part of the remaining rainforest in West Africa and are a global biodiversity hotspot.

<p>On September 23, the governments of Liberia and Norway announced that they had entered into a deal under which Liberia will become the first nation to completely halt deforestation in exchange for Norwegian development aid. Norway has agreed to pay $150 million in exchange for the halting of deforestation in Liberia by 2020. The deal was announced at the UN Climate Summit in New York. While Liberia’s forests are not as large as other countries’, its forests represent a significant part of the remaining rainforest in West Africa and are a global biodiversity hotspot.

<p>On September 23, the governments of Liberia and Norway announced that they had entered into a deal under which Liberia will become the first nation to completely halt deforestation in exchange for Norwegian development aid. Norway has agreed to pay $150 million in exchange for the halting of deforestation in Liberia by 2020. The deal was announced at the UN Climate Summit in New York. While Liberia’s forests are not as large as other countries’, its forests represent a significant part of the remaining rainforest in West Africa and are a global biodiversity hotspot.

<p>The High Court of Banda Aceh denied an appeal by palm oil company PT. Kallista Alam, which had been found guilty of destroying over 1,000 hectares of protected peat forest in Gunung Leuser ecosystem. The company faces a 114 billion rupiah ($9.4 million) fine, and is required to pay an additional 252 billion rupiah ($20.7 million) for cleanup, restoration, and remediation of the Tripa swamp area. Further, if the company is late in its compliance, it must pay an additional 5 million rupiah ($410) a day.

<p>Bloomberg News reported that European Union (EU) carbon permits had their biggest weekly drop in almost two months amid concern weak economies will discourage efforts to reduce a glut of the contracts in the world’s biggest greenhouse-gas market. Allowances for December fell as much as 3.7% last Friday to 5.48 euros ($6.85) a metric ton, the lowest since July 7, on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London. Permits traded at 5.66 euros at 4:47 p.m., taking the weekly drop to 4.6%, the largest since August 8.