Carbon Foresight signs Copenhagen Communiqué on Climate Change

Carbon Foresight has joined a prestigious group of international businesses in signing the Copenhagen Communiqué on Climate Change. The Communiqué was initiated by The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change (CLG) in June of 2009 and has been endorsed by the likes General Electric, Sun Microsystems, Deloitte, and many others.

Carbon Foresight signed the communiqué in the lead up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 15 in December to call for a strong political response and clear guidelines for states and organizations globally. Without clear political objectives and legislative mandates, organizations are not likely to go beyond their current business strategies and further integrate sustainability into their core business strategy, drive clean technologies, develop environmentally beneficial products, or increase their operational efficiencies.

The Copenhagen Communiqué calls for an ambitious, robust and equitable global deal on climate change that responds credibly to the scale and urgency of the crises facing the world today – and includes the following recommended actions:

• Any agreement must establish a global emissions cap and long-term reduction pathway for all greenhouse gas emissions and sources, for the period 2013 to 2050 (with interim targets). These targets will need to be guided by science to ensure global greenhouse gas concentrations are stabilized below critical thresholds. When stating this, we understand that there is an emerging consensus behind an objective of limiting global average temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels and that this will require global emissions to peak and begin to decline rapidly within the next decade.
• Developed countries need to take on immediate and deep emission reduction commitments that are much higher than the global average, and which are backed up with credible strategies to de-carbonize their economies. The developed countries need to demonstrate that low-carbon growth is both achievable and desirable.
• Developing countries will need to play their part by drawing up their own emission reduction plans in line with their common but differentiated responsibilities and capabilities. The least developed economies need additional assistance including increased and adequate financing, and expanded cooperation to help them adapt to and join the new low-carbon economy.

Key supporting elements of any agreement should include:

• Credible measurement, reporting and verification of emissions which are vital to measuring progress against the objectives of an effective climate treaty.
• Measures to deliver a robust global greenhouse gas emissions market in order to provide the most effective, efficient and equitable emission reductions. It would be comprised of a growing series of national or regional “cap-and-trade” markets linked together, in which the “caps” are brought down in line with the targets that have been adopted for emission reduction.
• Additional policy measures, because a strong carbon price alone will not be enough to deliver the level and nature of change required across each economy. Measures will be needed; to deliver a step-change in energy efficiency, to promote the rapid development, demonstration and wide deployment of low-carbon technologies and also to stimulate new markets for low-carbon goods and services.

The strength of an agreement will be judged on its ability to drive substantive action both inside and outside the UN process, at national and international levels, but in line with the principles agreed in Copenhagen. A strong, effective and equitable international climate framework will stimulate the domestic policy interventions, bilateral and regional deals that are needed as a matter of urgency to deliver on intermediate and long-term reduction targets and accelerate construction of the low-carbon economy.

The problem of climate change is solvable – many of the technologies required are available today while others can be developed if the right incentives are in place. The policies needed are relatively clear, and the costs of transition are manageable, even in the current economic climate.

The one thing we do not have is time. Delay is not an option.