Biography|Erik Solheim — The Council of State That Added the Environment Portfolio

Norwegian ministers are made in the Council Chamber of the Royal Palace, not in a ministry press room.

On 18 October 2007 an extraordinary Council of State did that for Erik Solheim a second time.

He already held international development, appointed on 17 October 2005 when Jens Stoltenberg's second cabinet took office.

The palace announcement that Friday named him Minister of the Environment while he kept the development brief at the Foreign Ministry.

Helen Bjørnøy left the environment post the same afternoon.

The changes took effect at 17:15.

Solheim became the first Norwegian cabinet member in modern practice to carry two constitutional portfolios at once.

He held both until 23 March 2012.

The palace at Slottsplassen is a public building with summer tours.

The Council Chamber itself is not a drop-in room.

The pin belongs at the façade because that is the house where the King sanctioned the double appointment.

The combined job is the one later UNEP and OECD biographies keep repeating.

It is also the job that made the 2007 reshuffle more than a routine swap of names.

The development seat had already put him on the Sri Lanka file as a minister rather than as a special adviser.

Adding the environment ministry put climate, biodiversity law, and aid in the same pair of hands for four and a half years.

When the party later moved him out of cabinet, the dual title left with him.

Photo: Jorge Láscar, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.