The Sky is Not the Limit: - Carbon Trade Watch

2.3 Corporations at the EarthSummitCorporate lobby activity before theEarth Summit is unclear, but it isperhaps telling that much of industry’sgoals for the Earth Summit (i.e.promoting “cost-effective policies” and“self-regulation”) were achieved. 1Considering the connections togovernment delegations thatcorporations had, it is unsurprisingthey were so successful. For example,the chair of the Working Party onSustainable Development in one of themost powerful corporate lobby groupsin the world, the International Chamberof Commerce (ICC), was also amember of the UK official delegation inRio. 2 The ICC has continued to haveprivileged access to policymakers andregularly makes statements to theInternational Negotiating Committee(INC) on climate change, representingthe “voice of business.” 3Corporations have played a major rolein the climate talks, increasinginfluence and dominance from theEarth Summit to the present day. Thecorporate lobby employs three tacticsfor its strategy in the climate arena.The most public of these is to denyclimate change exists using expensivepublic relations campaigns, supportingor employing climate sceptic scientistsand setting-up fake grassroots groupsto carry out anti-action campaigning. 4The second is to influence the processwithin the UN talks by direct lobbyingof delegations. And thirdly, to promotebusiness friendly solutions through‘partnerships’ with NGOs,governments and the UN.From Threat to OpportunityThe first two of these corporate tacticsare old and familiar. The GlobalClimate Coalition (GCC) was the mostvocal and influential lobby groupduring the climate process. The GCCsuccessfully lobbied governments inthe Earth Summit to avoid bindingemissions reductions 5 and in the leadup to Kyoto in 1997 ran a hugeadvertising campaign aimed atundermining the science of climatechange. 6 In 2002 the GCC disbandedsaying that it had achieved all itwanted to in the climate process,namely that: the US is not part ofKyoto, there are no tough sanctions onfailure to achieve reductions, andcorporate-led ‘solutions’ areunregulated and unrestricted in use.When the United States withdrew fromthe Kyoto Protocol, US administrationofficials cited a Global ClimateCoalition (GCC) figure that the treaty,without international emissions trading,would cost the US economy US $400billion 7 , aiming to show that it wouldnot be cost-effective to join. Theinsurance industry is one sector, whichdoes not share the same perspective.According to their forecasts, insurancelosses due to extreme weather eventswill grow more than three times fasterthan the global economy. 8 Theinteraction between insurance lossesand growth leads to a prediction thatby 2065, “the world economy cannotsustain the losses, and collapse willfollow.” 9 Whilst the insurance industryis hardly the poorest sector of society,its losses give an indication of some ofthe losses faced by ordinary people.Thousands of UK homeowners livingin flood plains cannot insure theirhomes, making their houses nowvirtually worthless, despite the fact thatthey must continue paying theirmortgages. Clearly the impacts ofclimate change on those who wouldnever have access to services likeinsurance will be even moredevastating.‘Cost-effectiveness’ and ‘efficiency’ areoften used by corporations toundermine effective climate changesolutions. However they are notneutral terms which can simply becalculated and universally applied tosupport a policy or model, withoutquestioning which groups are affectedand how. What is relatively ‘cheap’and ‘cost-effective’ for one sector like14