Global business leaders outline six steps for climate treaty at Copenhagen

28 May 2009

Global business leaders in Copenhagen for the World Business Summit on Climate Change have issued ‘The Copenhagen Call’, a statement that sets out the elements business believes are required to forge an effective new global climate treaty.

According to the statement, a new global climate treaty must set bold targets for emissions reductions by 2020 and 2050, limiting the global average rise in temperature to a maximum of 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels. This requires immediate and substantial action leading to an abatement of around 17Gt versus business-as-usual by 2020.

Emissions reduction at this scale will profoundly affect business, but the gathered business leaders say they are prepared to stand ready to make those changes and support ambitious political decisions that support economic recovery and safeguard the planet.

‘The ambition of the Copenhagen Call shows that business need not be a conservative voice on climate change. Many of the businesses represented at this significant event in the lead up to COP15 want brave decisions that will tackle this most wicked of problems,’ said Tim Flannery, chair of the Copenhagen Climate Council.

Presented to the Danish Prime Minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, and Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the UNFCCC, the Copenhagen Call will be taken forward by them in to the last six months of negotiations before the UN Climate Change Conference (COP15) in December.

‘Economic recovery and urgent action to tackle climate change are complementary – boosting the economy and jobs through investment in the new infrastructure needed to reduce emissions,’ the Call states.

Erik Rasmussen, Founder of the Copenhagen Climate Council, added, ‘Reducing the emissions that until now have been so linked to our economic growth and betterment will be an enormous, unprecedented global challenge but will also provide significant opportunities for sustainable growth, green jobs, development and innovation.’

In order to set a foundation for a sustainable economic future the Call outlines six steps:

• Agreement on a science-based greenhouse gas stabilisation path with 2020 and 2050 emissions reduction targets that will achieve it;
• Effective measurement, reporting and verification of emissions performance by business;
• Incentives for a dramatic increase in financing low emissions technologies;
• Deployment of existing low-emissions technologies and the development of new ones;
• Funds to make communities more resilient and able to adapt to the effects of climate change, and
• Means to finance forest protection.

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Copyright © 2009 newnet

Tags: cleantech, climate change

This story was published on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 at 12:37 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to article entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Global business leaders outline six steps for climate treaty at Copenhagen”

1. Fathima says:

   29 May 2009 at 12:03 pm

   About time we drew up tangible solutions to the issue.

   - FATHIMA

   ———-
   Watch and RATE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs7aZ4KIL3k
2. Hazel Henderson says:

   29 May 2009 at 3:05 pm

   I hope they can move from cap and trade to real solutions. I agree with Dr. James Hansen that cap and trade is a Temple of Doom ! See my article ,”Green Taxes ” Christian Science Nonitor,1990 !
3. Craig Hubley says:

   29 May 2009 at 5:42 pm

   Where’s carbon taxes as advocated by The Economist?

   Where’s an insistence on rollout of universal smart grids right into the home so every device can participate in conservation and peak levelling and fire warnings?

   Where’s an insistence on industry strategies to radically reduce reliance on transport and meeting in person and do everything by moving bits?

   This isn’t 2050 they’re talking about, it’s 2010. Worthless.
4. Craig Hubley says:

   29 May 2009 at 6:04 pm

   For that matter, where’s a global monetary system where biodiversity has a realistic valuation and externalizing harm on the poorest and most vulnerable people doesn’t pay?

   Does anyone reading this really believe we can get to 2050 without weapons of mass destruction and genocides without this kind of change?

   It’s not like it’s a new idea, the UN ICLEI-sponsored 2005 Montreal Declaration of World Mayors and Municipal Leaders clause 4.3 called on governments to change “trade, credit, banking reserve rules” and other monetary measures to avert a climate and debt crisis. Which we are now in.

   Government and business “leaders” that don’t use their leverage in a crisis like the present one to insist on the actual implementation of global agreements that would prevent a similar problem in future aren’t “leaders”, are they? One wonders who they work for. At least the businessmen are working explicitly for their stockholders without pretending to work for the public.

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