Copenhagen: Business as Usual?
Progressive businesses must speak out in support of a strong climate deal or risk letting their head-in-the-sand competitors derail the talks, Oxfam International cautioned today. The warning comes ahead of a series of high-level debates in Copenhagen on the private sector's role in tackling climate change.
9 December 2009
Conflicting voices are emerging from the business community one calling for ambitious and urgent action and the other for obfuscation and delay. Oxfam is urging progressive business leaders to push wavering governments to show leadership in the climate talks.
'Corporations can open space for negotiators in Copenhagen or they can close it down, said Jeremy Hobbs, Oxfam International's Executive Director.
"A critical mass of major companies has recognized that averting climate catastrophe and moving towards a low-carbon global economy is a business imperative. We are at a critical juncture, and now is the time for business to call loudly with one voice for a fair, ambitious, and binding global deal," Hobbs said.
An increasing number of well-known companies are working together for ambitious climate policy action at the national and global levels. This includes 16 major brands that make up Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP), such as: Nike, Timberland, Levi Strauss, Starbucks and eBay.
At a global level, the Corporate Leaders' Group on Climate Change, created by the Prince of Wales, has organized the Copenhagen Communiqué. This detailed policy statement - signed by the BICEP companies, GE, Siemens, Coca-Cola, Nestle, Procter & Gamble, and more than 800 other major companies around the world - calls for "an ambitious, robust, and equitable global deal on climate change."
Dissension in the ranks of the business community over climate policy action was on display in the United States recently, with major companies withdrawing from the US Chamber of Commerce or its board over its opposition to government action on global warming. This conflict is likely to spill over into the international negotiations in Copenhagen.
The private sector plays a central role in the fight against climate change. An increasing number of companies have taken significant steps to cut their own emissions, while many recognize the importance of securing their own markets and supply chains by helping communities adapt to a changing climate.
Business is also helping to create and disseminate technologies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions around the world.
