Climate Change Update: To Stay Competitive, Businesses Urged to Make Climate Resilience a Priority | Reuters

To Stay Competitive, Businesses Urged to Make Climate Resilience a Priority | Reuters: "The Charlotte, N.C.-based power company is in the third and final year of a $1 million effort with the nonprofit Nature Conservancy to slow saltwater intrusion in the Albemarle Peninsula, near the Outer Banks.

By creating oyster reefs and planting 20,000 different kinds of trees in the estuary, the research team aims to ward off rising sea levels and restore the ecosystem's peat-rich soils before the peninsula is submerged in a century.

Heather Quinley, Duke's director of energy and environmental policy, said the project marked the start of the utility's efforts to develop climate preparation plans for the areas it serves.

It has also made the utility one of a growing, but still small, number of companies trying to address adaptation, as global warming shifts agricultural patterns and alters coastlines.

Duke has about 4 million electricity customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana."