COPENHAGEN – More than 500 leaders of the world’s top companies met in Denmark over the weekend at the World Business Summit on Climate Change to discuss how businesses can help in solving climate change and to urge aggressive emissions reduction goals to governments negotiating the next international climate treaty at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in December 2009 in Copenhagen.
The goal of the summit was to allow CEOs to discuss how their firms can adopt new business models, develop new technologies and advise governments on removing barriers and creating incentives for implementing new solutions.
At the close of the three-day summit on May 26, business leaders issued the Copenhagen Call, a statement outlining steps they believe are necessary to reach a new global climate treaty. The proponents call for a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, with a significant portion achieved by 2020.
- The Call sets forth the following six steps:
- Agreement on a science-based greenhouse gas stabilization 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.
