{"id":489453,"date":"2010-03-30T10:46:58","date_gmt":"2010-03-30T14:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthportal.org\/news\/?p=3247"},"modified":"2010-03-30T10:46:58","modified_gmt":"2010-03-30T14:46:58","slug":"de-boer%e2%80%99s-departure-highlights-role-of-business-in-climate-solutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/489453","title":{"rendered":"De Boer\u2019s departure highlights role of business in climate solutions"},"content":{"rendered":"

ClimateWire<\/a>: When U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer announced last month that he would step down from his post in July, his words underscored the fact that climate change<\/a> solutions may come from boardrooms and executive suites, not just from politicians.<\/p>\n

“I have always maintained that while governments provide the necessary policy framework, the real solutions must come from business,” de Boer said. He pointed out that the international climate talks in Copenhagen<\/a> last December provided a new sense of direction that calls for “new partnerships with the business sector,” and that he will be taking a job as a global adviser on climate and sustainability within the Swiss consulting firm KPMG.<\/p>\n

While the world’s biggest industrial emitters may have successfully stalled the development of a binding treaty at Copenhagen and helped shape cap-and-trade legislation in Congress, investors also have the power to push companies toward environmental responsibility.<\/p>\n

Now global insurance giant Lloyd’s of London is warning that pressure is growing on businesses to address the environmental footprint<\/a> of their operations and to act in the name of corporate responsibility.<\/p>\n

Lloyd’s issued words of caution to businesses on its Web site on Friday, noting, “Pressure is building on businesses to address the environmental impact of their operations.”<\/p>\n

“Moves by intergovernmental bodies and investors suggest that they could soon be made more financially accountable for the pollution they cause,” the firm wrote. Some experts say that such accountability could mean that “many of the world’s biggest companies could see their profits cut by one third as a result of more stringent regulation, the abolition of subsidies and increased taxes,” Lloyd’s wrote.<\/p>\n

Some investors are already taking action to fuel<\/a> change, Lloyd’s said. Last month, international investors representing about $2.1 trillion in assets decided to use their collective monetary might to call out 86 companies that had failed to deliver on their commitments as signatories of the U.N. Global Compact, a decade-old policy initiative that seeks to bring global business in line with “universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption.”<\/p>\n

Still, Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, cautioned that change will not come exclusively from the business community and that government still needs to provide a policy framework to make big change happen.<\/p>\n

“The most important thing government can do is pass national policy,” he said. “We’ve never solved any pollution problem without policy limits” (Tom Zeller Jr., New York Times<\/em><\/a>, March 28). – DFM<\/strong><\/p>\n

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ClimateWire: When U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer announced last month that he would step down from his post in July, his words underscored the fact that climate change solutions may come from boardrooms and executive suites, not just from politicians. “I have always maintained that while governments provide the necessary policy framework, the real […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-489453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489453\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}