Business leaders from 140 companies around the world have urged climate negotiators meeting in Poznan, Poland this week to hammer out a legal framework for investors to back greenhouse-gas-cutting projects — including carbon-capture and storage, or CCS.
“Decisive action will stimulate economic activity” is the slogan appearing on the Poznan Communiqué, a document detailing what companies want from a new treaty on greenhouse gas emissions. The 140 Poznan signatories include BP, E.ON UK, Shell, Aker Clean Carbon, Cisco and Earnst & Young.
Scientists and policymakers are now squeezed between the United Nations and the G8 countries on one side and business leaders on the other. A legally binding climate treaty is sought in part to facilitate a healthy carbon price after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
The communiqué was drafted in Britain but signed by international business leaders seeking to influence the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ahead of a key Copenhagen meeting in autumn 2009, when a new climate treaty is expected.
The joint six-page statement demanded a “sufficiently ambitious” UN agreement.
A key but contentious demand of business leaders is that negotiators revise the clean development mechanism, or CDM, a business model under which U.N.-approved energy-efficiency projects generate emissions credits worth cash. The oil and gas industry would like to see CDM include CCS, but environmentalists are wary of oil companies’ ability to influence carbon’s price.
“Business” also wants worldwide emissions “caps” or limits to be lowered in-line with emissions targets and then linked into a global carbon-trading market. They want a start date for trading.
On top of this, those investing in low-carbon technology want assurances that success curbing greenhouse gases won’t bring new taxes for their efforts.
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BP America Inc.,
CCS,
E.ON,
Shell
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