Global Compact International Yearbook 2009

Agenda
Climate Change
Transforming the Market: Energy Efficiency in Buildings. This
report, the result of a $US15 million investment and four
years of research, shows how energy use in buildings can be
cut 50 percent by 2050.
Business knows it will have to provide the lion’s share of
the huge investment that will be needed. But to do that it
needs:
• The right policy framework. This must be transparent, predictable
and long-term, allowing business to understand the
risks as fully as possible before investing.
• Developed countries need precise intermediate targets for
2020-2030 to allow them to measure and adapt if the world
is to reduce CO2 emissions 50 percent by 2050. Yes, huge
investments are called for in energy, urban infrastructure,
water, transport and food supplies, but we must make
sure these investments remain aligned with a sustainable
future.
• Solutions must identify ways to share the burden fairly so that
all parties can and will commit to them. We need to ensure
that all industrial sectors, the financial world, developing
and developed countries with their national concerns and
many others have their needs taken into consideration so
they are willing and able to cooperate.
• Rapidly emerging economies should be considered separately
and in a distinct fashion.
• National policies must be suited to national circumstances.
• Actions in developing countries will be effective only if
programmes are put in place to build up infrastructure and
develop skills and those programmes are accompanied by
an allocation of resources.
Many questions and issues remain, but we cannot allow these
to block our path to a new climate regime. For example, we
need to identify market mechanisms that will create a price
for carbon that takes into account its true cost. We need to
understand how to scale up energy efficiency globally. An
energy-lean economy: What does it look like and what technologies
and policies will help create it? We need jobs in clean
energy, but how do we get investment flowing into it?
The world after 2050 will be different, and the changes that get
us there will be transformational. But there is no alternative
to making those changes. We need to build a more sustainable
society with lower energy and resource use. Whatever
happens in Copenhagen, this need will remain. How we live,
do business and earn our living – the lives we will have in
the future – all depend on what we do now to handle this
need.
Lila Karbassi,
UN Global Compact Issue
Manager, Environment
5
United Nations Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon has called climate change “the
defining challenge of our time” – for
good reasons. Climate change is the most
pressing and disruptive issue the world
is facing today. It affects every aspect of
society, from energy resources and water
sustainability to public health, food
security, and even human security.
Despite – or perhaps even because of – the global financial
crisis, there is no time to delay action on climate change. There
is only a very short window of opportunity, which requires
all social actors to become part of the solution to this global
threat. Greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global
warming must be cut with no further delay.
This year, crucial government negotiations will be held at
the UN Climate Change Conference (COP15) in December in
Copenhagen. The goal is to forge a new global framework on
climate change, one that will be an effective successor to the
Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Ultimately, much will
depend on the positions of the United States and China, the
globe’s biggest generators of greenhouse gases, who together
account for nearly half of all emissions.
As a key stakeholder in the global climate debate, the business
community has a critical role to play and many businesses
have been mobilizing for some time. What is needed now is
a strong signal from business that will give governments the
confidence needed to negotiate a strong deal with ambitious
emission reduction targets at COP15.
It is in this context that the Copenhagen Climate Council –
in cooperation with the UN Global Compact and a group of
partners – convened the World Business Summit on Climate
Change from May 24–26, 2009, in Copenhagen. The Summit
brought together over 650 business leaders, government officials,
and NGO representatives from around the world to put
forward a set of recommendations for the December negotiations.
The Summit was opened by the Secretary-General, who
challenged business leaders to “put themselves at the forefront
of an unprecedented effort to retool the global economy into
a cleaner, greener, and more sustainable economy.”
The Summit was an effective forum for showing how the private
sector can address the climate challenge through financ-
Global Compact International Yearbook 2009 13