Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
7/31/2015
Negotiations at the 21st Conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will not focus on whether climate change is real, but instead will strive to develop the most economical way to address the issue, Rachel Kyte, World Bank Group vice president and special envoy for climate change, said this week at an event hosted by the Center for American Progress. “When I talk to people in [the United States] people seem to think that we’re debating whether climate is happening and whether we caused it or how, no. That’s the debate happening [in the United States]. What the debate that’s happening at the international level is, is how ambitious dare we be in reacting to what we’ve already set in motion and what are the consequences of not being ambitious and who’s going to pay for it. The science is absolutely clear. The economics is very compelling. It’s never been so compelling,” Kyte said.
A successful global climate agreement out of Paris will send clear economic signals to businesses that now is the time to move away from high carbon practices and invest in cleaner energy. The agreement, to be negotiated in December, will include commitments to address climate change from each member country, though the exact form, legally binding or otherwise, remains unknown. “The conversation now is what are the macroeconomic and fiscal policy levers available to governments that can set the right incentives, the long-term trajectory, that businesses need in order to invest in cleaner energy generation, in cleaner energy transport solutions, in cleaner manufacturing processes,” Kyte said. “What business needs, is to know this is the direction of travel, and this is the kind of pace we want to travel.”
Thirteen U.S. Business Make Clean Energy Pledges
Some U.S. businesses have already started on the path toward a low-carbon economy. Thirteen U.S. companies early this week signed the “American Business Act on Climate Pledge.” With the pledge, Alcoa, Apple, Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Cargill, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Goldman Sachs, Google, Microsoft, PepsiCo, UPS, and Walmart, have pledged more than $140 billion in new low-carbon investment and more than 1,600 megawatts of new renewable energy. The companies acknowledged a need for industry to be involved in the Paris negotiations. “We applaud the growing number of countries that have already set ambitious targets for climate action. In this context, we support the conclusion of a climate change agreement in Paris that takes a strong step forward toward a low-carbon, sustainable future,” the companies wrote in the pledge.
Notable company-specific pledges include Coca-Cola’s promise to reduce its carbon footprint by 25 percent by 2020, General Motors’ pledge to reduce carbon intensity from its facilities 20 percent by 2020 over a 2010 baseline, and Google’s plan to power its operations with 100 percent renewable energy.
