Figueres calls on businesses to break "vicious cycle" of climate inaction
The UN’s top climate change official has called on green businesses to provide the “powerful vocal support” for action on climate change that will provide governments with a “clearer space” to push through green policies.
Speaking at the CBI’s International Green Business Dinner last night, Christiana Figueres laid down the gauntlet to business leaders to step up their low carbon investments, arguing it is the business community that has the power to break the deadlock that has marred the UN’s long-running climate change negotiations.
“I fully understand that you could be more aggressive in your capital allocations if you had a stronger market signal from the policy providers,” she said. “But today I stand before you with a clear request: help us break that vicious cycle. Help us convert it into a virtuous cycle that can power new growth, create jobs in new sectors, help alleviate poverty and stabilise the climate.”
CBI deputy director-general Dr Neil Bentley said corporate investment in low carbon technologies was being hampered by the failure of policy makers to provide the “clarity and certainty” investors require.
But Figueres countered that while greater certainty over the future direction of international negotiations would help, there was still a strong case for businesses to accelerate low carbon investment.
“In the absence of a clear solid international framework, [green investment] represents a risk for business, but I contend that it is a manageable risk,” she said, arguing that population growth and the need to cut greenhouse emissions mean that “each ton of CO2 emitted by 2030 will have to produce up to five times as much economic value added as it does today”.
Speaking to reporters ahead of her speech, Figueres said businesses could not wait for governments to deliver the perfect low carbon policy framework.
“I want to see more aggressive investment in clean tech, more aggressive investment in research and development of clean technologies,” she said. “My hope is that businesses will choose to be in the lead. This is way too important for people to assume only governments must be in the lead, everyone must be in the lead. Governments have to be in the lead with policy, the financial sector needs to be in the lead with its instruments, the business sector needs to be in the lead with its technologies, and civil society needs to be in the lead with its consumer patterns.”
Figueres also revealed that optimism is mounting that significant progress towards an international deal can be made at the upcoming Durban Summit, despite continued deadlock over the future of the Kyoto Protocol.
She hailed last week’s round of talks in Panama as the most encouraging set of negotiations in a long time and predicted Durban would see a number of key elements of any future treaty approved.
“[We expect to see] approval of the Green Fund, approval of technology mechanisms that will go into effect next year, [and] approval of an adaptation committee that can co-ordinate much better the fragmented approach to adaptation efforts,” she said. “I also think we will see approval of the guidelines for monitoring, reporting and verifying emissions in both developed and developing countries… Those are very clear outcomes.”
She also hinted some form of compromise agreement on the future of the Kyoto Protocol could be brokered, despite the stand-off between developing countries calling for a second commitment period of the deal and those industrialised countries that refusing to extend the agreement.
“I don’t think we will see something definitive, but rather something that will probably become a transitional arrangement both under the Kyoto Protocol with a second commitment period as well as [through] pledges under the convention,” she said.
She admitted that the current global economic slowdown could make negotiations on the planned $100bn Green Fund more challenging, but she said between $27bn and $28bn of the fast start funding promised by industrialised countries had already been identified.
She also insisted that the secretariat was still expecting governments to find a way to deliver “the full $100bn” a year of climate funding proposed for 2020 onwards.
By James Murray
Speaking at the CBI’s International Green Business Dinner last night, Christiana Figueres laid down the gauntlet to business leaders to step up their low carbon investments, arguing it is the business community that has the power to break the deadlock that has marred the UN’s long-running climate change negotiations.
“I fully understand that you could be more aggressive in your capital allocations if you had a stronger market signal from the policy providers,” she said. “But today I stand before you with a clear request: help us break that vicious cycle. Help us convert it into a virtuous cycle that can power new growth, create jobs in new sectors, help alleviate poverty and stabilise the climate.”
CBI deputy director-general Dr Neil Bentley said corporate investment in low carbon technologies was being hampered by the failure of policy makers to provide the “clarity and certainty” investors require.
But Figueres countered that while greater certainty over the future direction of international negotiations would help, there was still a strong case for businesses to accelerate low carbon investment.
“In the absence of a clear solid international framework, [green investment] represents a risk for business, but I contend that it is a manageable risk,” she said, arguing that population growth and the need to cut greenhouse emissions mean that “each ton of CO2 emitted by 2030 will have to produce up to five times as much economic value added as it does today”.
Speaking to reporters ahead of her speech, Figueres said businesses could not wait for governments to deliver the perfect low carbon policy framework.
“I want to see more aggressive investment in clean tech, more aggressive investment in research and development of clean technologies,” she said. “My hope is that businesses will choose to be in the lead. This is way too important for people to assume only governments must be in the lead, everyone must be in the lead. Governments have to be in the lead with policy, the financial sector needs to be in the lead with its instruments, the business sector needs to be in the lead with its technologies, and civil society needs to be in the lead with its consumer patterns.”
Figueres also revealed that optimism is mounting that significant progress towards an international deal can be made at the upcoming Durban Summit, despite continued deadlock over the future of the Kyoto Protocol.
She hailed last week’s round of talks in Panama as the most encouraging set of negotiations in a long time and predicted Durban would see a number of key elements of any future treaty approved.
“[We expect to see] approval of the Green Fund, approval of technology mechanisms that will go into effect next year, [and] approval of an adaptation committee that can co-ordinate much better the fragmented approach to adaptation efforts,” she said. “I also think we will see approval of the guidelines for monitoring, reporting and verifying emissions in both developed and developing countries… Those are very clear outcomes.”
She also hinted some form of compromise agreement on the future of the Kyoto Protocol could be brokered, despite the stand-off between developing countries calling for a second commitment period of the deal and those industrialised countries that refusing to extend the agreement.
“I don’t think we will see something definitive, but rather something that will probably become a transitional arrangement both under the Kyoto Protocol with a second commitment period as well as [through] pledges under the convention,” she said.
She admitted that the current global economic slowdown could make negotiations on the planned $100bn Green Fund more challenging, but she said between $27bn and $28bn of the fast start funding promised by industrialised countries had already been identified.
She also insisted that the secretariat was still expecting governments to find a way to deliver “the full $100bn” a year of climate funding proposed for 2020 onwards.
By James Murray
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