BioRegional joins 500 world businesses in call for bold Copenhagen climate targets

22.09.09

This morning, leaders of over 500 companies from around the world published The Copenhagen Communiqué calling on world leaders to agree “an ambitious, robust and equitable global deal on climate change that responds credibly to the scale and urgency of the crisis facing the world today”. They warn that business will suffer if a credible deal is not reached at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December. BioRegional [1] has joined the call and, based on its fifteen years of developing sustainable businesses, considers that the 50-85% reduction in climate change emissions by 2050 that is being demanded is both feasible and essential.

BioRegional’s Director Sue Riddlestone said today:
“There is no time to waste when it comes to tackling climate change so BioRegional is very happy to join this call today. Business has a massive role to play in creating a low carbon economy and there are some signatories here that I am surprised and delighted to see. Governments need confidence from industry in order to make bold decisions – I hope this call will help them to make the right decisions in Copenhagen”.

Building the case that The Communique’s 2050 targets are more than feasible, BioRegional’s own social enterprise partnerships have already made the following carbon dioxide reductions:
• Residents at the BedZED eco-village in London can cut their total carbon emissions by 50% compared to the national average.
• The Laundry’s paper recycling and buy back loop for businesses in central London has reduced carbon emissions by 63% compared to using paper from virgin timber and not recycling.
• BioRegional Charcoal Company which makes BBQ charcoal from UK woodlands has reduced its carbon emissions from transport by 85% compared to most imports.

The global launch of The Copenhagen Communiqué is timed to coincide with the UN Summit on Climate Change which is taking place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York today. A copy of The Copenhagen Communiqué was today handed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and distributed to more than 100 Heads of State and Governments attending the summit [2].

The Copenhagen Communiqué has already secured the support of companies based in over 50 countries (including the US, EU, Japan, Australia and Canada, as well as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), ranging from the world’s largest companies and best-known brands to Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) and NGOs across a wide variety of sectors.

In just two pages, The Communiqué sets out the business case for a strong and effective UN climate framework and offers a progressive global consensus on the shape of an agreement. The full text of The Copenhagen Communiqué is available in at www.copenhagencommunique.com, in addition to the complete list of companies and NGOs that have endorsed it so far and supporting quotes from their leaders.

The Copenhagen Communiqué is an initiative of The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders’ Group on Climate Change which is run by The University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership [3]. Global partners in support of the initiative include The Climate Group, The UN Global Compact and WWF International along with business associations and initiatives in many different countries [4].

In The Communiqué, the more than 500 business and NGO leaders say, “These are difficult and challenging times for the international business community and a poor outcome from the UN Climate Change

Conference in Copenhagen will only make them more so, by creating uncertainty and undermining confidence”. They warn that, “Economic development will not be sustained in the longer term unless the climate is stabilised” and say it is “critical” that “we exit this recession in a way that lays the foundation for low-carbon growth and avoids locking us into a high carbon future”.

The companies and NGOs call for emission reduction targets to be guided by science and offer support for the emerging consensus to limit global average temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. In turn, they recognise that this will require global emissions to peak and begin to decline rapidly within the next decade and reduce by 50-85% by 2050.

The business and NGO leaders urge developed countries to take on “immediate and deep emission reduction commitments” and “demonstrate that low-carbon growth is both achievable and desirable” and provide the necessary financial and technological assistance to developing countries. They call on developing countries to draw up their own emission reduction plans, and call on advanced developing countries to adopt economy-wide commitments by 2020.

The organisations argue for an immediate interim emergency package to provide substantial funding to tropical forest nations to help them halt deforestation in their countries. The continued destruction of rainforests accounts for up to a fifth of annual greenhouse gas emissions [5].

The issue of financing for climate change mitigation and adaptation more generally is one of the most contentious issues in the climate negotiations, with a variety of estimates suggesting that between US $100-200bn will be needed annually by 2030 to help developing countries reduce their emissions and adapt to the climate change already being experienced [6]. In The Copenhagen Communiqué the business leaders argue that “the costs of transition are manageable, even in the current economic climate”.

Craig Bennett, Co-Director of The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change, based at the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership (the organisation behind the initiative), said: “It has been extraordinary to see the level of support that has come in from the international business community for The Copenhagen Communiqué – from companies in the developed and developing world, across all sectors, ranging from the world’s largest companies and best-known brands, to small and medium sized enterprises. If it is possible for such a variety of companies to agree on the basic shape of an ambitious, robust and equitable global deal on climate change – surely it should now be possible for the world’s governments to do the same?”

Companies in support of The Communiqué include Coca-Cola, eBay Inc., General Electric, HP, Procter & Gamble, Marks and Spencer, Nestlé, Rio Tinto, Swiss Re, Tesco, Unilever, Virgin Group,  Industrial Investors Group, Insurance Australia Group, Linfox, Macquarie Group Limited, EDP - Energias do Brasil, Bank of Beijing, Chervon Ltd, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, The Bank of East Asia, Nippon Insurance, Rezayat Group, Woongjin Group and Sappi Limited. The full list of signatories can be found at: www.copenhagencommunique.com

International companies are welcome to add their support for The Copenhagen Communiqué right through until the end of November and it is expected that the total number of signatories will increase dramatically over the next couple of months as more and more companies hear about the initiative.

Representatives of The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change, and many of the CEOs who signed The Communiqué, will be present at the United Nations Climate Summit in New York
this week.

NOTES
[1] BioRegional is an award-winning entrepreneurial charity, which invents and delivers practical solutions for sustainability. http://www.bioregional.com

[2] The United Nations Summit on Climate Change is being convened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 22 September 2009. Over 100 Heads of State and Government will gather at UN Headquarters in New York in an attempt to advance the climate negotiations in advance of the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December. For more information, please see:
http://www.un.org/wcm/content/site/climatechange/lang/en/pages/2009summit

[3] The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change (consisting of the UK and EU groups) has been developed by The University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership. Members of the group include: Acciona, AECOM, Allianz SE, Anglian Water Group, Axa Insurance, BAA, Barilla, BskyB, Cemex, Deutsche Telekom AG,

Enel SpA, F&C Asset Management, Fortis Bank Nederland, John Lewis Partnership, Johnson Matthey, Kingfisher Group, Lloyds Banking Group, Philips, Reckitt Benckiser, Royal Dutch Shell, Skai Media, Skanska AB, Standard Chartered Bank, Sun Microsystems, Telecom Italia, Tesco, Thames Water, Unilever and Vodafone. More information is available at: www.copenhagencommunique.com

[4] Other partners include Business in the Community (and The Prince’s May Day Network), Canadian Business for
Social Responsibility, Climate Change Business Forum (based in Hong Kong), University of Chile, FGV (Centro de Estudos em Sustentabilidade da EAESP), Fundacion Entorno, 2 Degrees (German CEOs for Climate Protection), The International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) and The UN Office for Partnerships.

[5] The paragraph on rainforests in the Communiqué offers support for the approach presented in the March 2009 report "An Emergency Package for Tropical Forests", produced by The Prince’s Rainforest Project.
More information is available at: http://www.rainforestsos.org

[6] The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has estimated that around $176bn will be needed annually by
2030 in order that developing countries can keep their emissions within safe levels.
See: http://unfccc.int/files/cooperation_and_support/financial_
mechanism/application/pdf/background_paper.pdf

While, the UN Development Programme recommends that OECD countries will need "To provide at least US$86 billion
in ‘new and additional’ finance for adaptation through transfers from rich to poor by 2016 to protect progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and prevent post-2015 reversals in human development."
See http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2007-2008