The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) will present to the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Convention (COP 12) possible options for action within a revised international framework to urgently address energy and climate challenges. The WBCSD calls on governments to create the predictable long-term framework conditions required for business to invest in a sustainable energy future.
“Before business invests, it evaluates the future. It gauges long-term supply and demand for its products, assesses the prevailing economic conditions including tax structures and policy frameworks and decides on an investment strategy,” the WBCSD reported. It cannot invest seriously in limiting greenhouse gas emissions unless governments “provide clear signals as to where we are headed long-term.”
The options for action “within a flexible future international framework after 2012” include:
– by 2010, establish a quantifiable, 50-year goal for the managing global GHG emissions.
– Encourage the development and deployment of leading-edge technologies through partnerships and incentives and an approach to mitigate long-term market risk and deliver secure benefits for large-scale, low-carbon, new technology projects.
– Modify the existing international framework so that it builds progressively (bottom up) from local, national, sector or regional programs that contribute to the quantifiable long-term international goal and catalyze the implementation of such programs.
– Allow industry sector participation across multiple facilities or technology platforms at the national level and across national boundaries, and enhance GHG project mechanisms to allow them to cater for sector projects.
– Include all countries – both developing and developed – over time.
The WBCSD represents some 180 corporate members from all over the world with a combined annual turnover of US$6 trillion dollars and a customer base of three billion people a day. Its Energy and Climate Focus Area produced the document -“Energy & Climate – A contribution to the dialogue on long-term cooperative action” – especially for the Nairobi meeting. It is adapted from a more comprehensive assessment, “Policy Directions to 2050”, due to appear later in the year.
WBCSD President Bjorn Stigson will address the COP 12 ministerial meeting on Tuesday, November 14, presenting the views of the WBCSD membership regarding the collaboration between business and governments to address the urgent challenges posed by the energy and climate debate.
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