Also by christian

How do you measure success? Many times, it’s difficult to point to one specific moment when a campaign delivers a big moment that demonstrates, beyond any doubt, that you've succeeded.

Well, our thanks go to E.ON for providing that moment for our coal campaign late last night – just as we were leaving the office, in fact. On my way to the pub, I met a press officer running back towards the front door – "E.ON have shelved Kingsnorth – just got to go and check if it's real, see you in a few…"

He never made it to the pub, because as the evening unfolded it became clear that E.ON were, indeed, after a three year public campaign, kicking their plans for the massively controversial coal plant into the long grass – which would have been the first to be built in Britain since Drax was completed more than 20 years ago.

A new report on the costs of adapting to climate change is a wake-up call to the rich world

There's a curious irony at the heart of climate change. We, that is, the rich countries, have largely caused the problem. But we aren't the one who are going to suffer the most because of it.

In fact, one of the main reasons we are as rich as we are is because we have burnt the most fossil fuels. Britain, for example, was the home of the largely-coal-powered Industrial revolution, and because we got an early lead on burning coal, we are not only relatively well off, we also lead the world in historical emissions. In total, throughout history, the British have emitted more carbon per head of population than anyone else.

With the economy stumbling, emissions are falling. Is this the moment of opportunity to take a deep breath and cut them for good?

In pretty big news, the FT have seen an early extract of an International Energy Agency report which says that due to the global recession, emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels are now actually falling.

We'll have to wait for the full report for the numbers, but since the start of the economic crisis emissions have undergone "a significant decline," says the IEA.

Scientists aboard our ship the MV Arctic Sunrise measure the thickness of the Arctic sea ice.

Today we're expecting an announcement from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre - the US body that monitors the Arctic - about the 'seasonal low' of Arctic sea ice for 2009.

Every year, the Arctic sea ice - the floating cap of frozen ocean that sits over the north of the planet - shrinks and grows with the seasons. In the Arctic summer it melts away and gets smaller, in winter it grows and get bigger. It being mid-September we've just passed the height of Arctic summer, and today the NSIDC will tell us how small the ice cap got this year.