WBCSD outlines key elements for future climate framework

Nairobi, 8 November 2006 - The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) will present to the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Convention (COP 12) possible options for action within a revised international framework to urgently address energy and climate challenges. The WBCSD calls on governments to create the predictable long-term framework conditions required for business to invest in a sustainable energy future.

“Before business invests, it evaluates the future. It gauges long-term supply and demand for its products, assesses the prevailing economic conditions including tax structures and policy frameworks and decides on an investment strategy,” the WBCSD reported. It cannot invest seriously in limiting greenhouse gas emissions unless governments “provide clear signals as to where we are headed long-term.”

The options for action “within a flexible future international framework after 2012” (when the Kyoto Protocol expires) include the following key elements:

- Establishing by 2010 a quantifiable, long-term (50-year) goal for the management of global GHG emissions.
- Encouraging the development and deployment of leading-edge technologies through partnerships and incentives and an approach to mitigate long-term market risk and deliver secure benefits for large-scale, low-carbon, new technology projects.
- Including ideas and lessons learned from current approaches and in particular building on existing GHG reduction markets.
- Modifying the existing international framework so that it builds progressively (bottom up) from local, national, sector or regional programs that contribute to the quantifiable long-term international goal and catalyzing the implementation of such programs.
- Allowing industry sector participation across multiple facilities or technology platforms at the national level and across national boundaries, and enhancing GHG project mechanisms to allow them to cater for sector projects.
- The progressive inclusion of all countries – both developing and developed.

The WBCSD noted that the existing international framework should be revised and expanded “to encourage technology development to introduce change into the energy system; to further develop approaches to foster deployment of current best practice and existing technology; and to offer a more rapid deployment for new energy technologies.” The importance of new technological development is featured in the report, especially with regards to the implementation of medium to large-scale demonstration projects. Two approaches are suggested in how to overcome the risk associated with such activities.

The WBCSD represents some 180 corporate members from all over the world with a combined annual turnover of US$ 6 trillion dollars and a customer base of three billion people a day. Its Energy and Climate Focus Area produced the document – “Energy & Climate – A contribution to the dialogue on long-term cooperative action” – especially for the Nairobi meeting. It is adapted from a more comprehensive assessment, “Policy Directions to 2050”, due to appear later in the year.

WBCSD President Björn Stigson will address the COP 12 ministerial meeting on Tuesday 14 November 2006, presenting the views of the WBCSD membership regarding the collaboration between business and governments to address the urgent challenges posed by the energy and climate debate. He will elaborate on the link between policies and technologies: “If we want to see innovation and new technologies implemented, we need policies that are fit for that purpose, as different technologies require different policy frameworks,” he notes.

“A quantifiable long term goal expressed in terms of annual carbon emissions, would assist in reducing current levels of uncertainty…and become a point of reference for the development of national energy and climate policy”, the WBCSD argues.

“The global goal would be revisited periodically, but certainly no later than 2020–25, as climate impact science continues to develop, to affirm or reset the rate of technology deployment that is required” to transition to a low carbon future.

The WBCSD will publicly release this document at an official UNFCCC COP 12 side event to take place on Tuesday 14 November 2006 from 3:15 to 4:45 pm in the African Blackwood Tree room.

Print copies of the report will be available at this side event and at the WBCSD booth.

Lloyd Timberlake
Communications Director
Tel: +41 (22) 839 3100
E-mail: timberlake@wbcsd.org

The WBCSD represents some 180 corporate members from all over the world with a combined annual turnover of US$ 6 trillion dollars and a customer base of three billion people a day.

This release was published on openPR.