USA: More than 100 corporate heads, international organisations and experts set out plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions, calling on governments to act urgently against global warming

More than 100 corporate heads, international organisations and experts set out a plan on Tuesday to cut greenhouse gas emissions, calling on governments to act urgently against global warming. The group, which includes executives from a range of industries including air transport, energy, and technology, said governments need to support company initiatives by setting targets to comabt carbon dioxide emissions. About 100 companies, international organisations and experts together proposed a major plan on Tuesday (February 20) to fight global warming and adverse climate change, claiming it as a viable post-Kyoto framework for affecting positive change at the levels of policy and industry. The meeting in New York City of the Global Roundtable on Climate Change emphasised the need for governments worldwide to act urgently by placing a price on carbon emissions and setting forth policies aimed at addressing energy efficiency and de-carbonisation in all sectors. The group included executives from a range of industries including air transport, energy, and technology. Members include heavyweights such as General Electric, Ford Motor Co., Toyota Motor North America, investment bank Goldman Sachs, and Wal-Mart among many others. This was the group's first major agreement since they began talks in 2004. Emphasising how recent reports had shown that the world was already approaching dangerous limits of greenhouse gas concentrations, Jeffery D Sachs, Chair of the Global Roundtable on Climate Change and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, said that the roundtable took a macro view of the efforts needed for environmental stability. He also reiterated how the positive change in the climate could not be affected without the help of developing countries like China and India, which are seen by many as major contributors of carbon-dioxide emissions. China and India's role in cutting down CO2 emissions was discussed keenly by the panelists and one of the group members, Steve Cornelli of NRG Energy, an energy provider which operates a variety of energy-related operations worldwide, said that accelerated technology change could make low emission, low carbon technology commercially attractive to businesses and even the government of China. Tomas K.G. Ericson, President, Volvo Group, North America, another member of the group said that his company was working on developing new vehicle engines that were more environmentally friendly. Helen Howes, Vice President, Corporate Environment, Health and Safety at Exelon, one of America's largest distributors of electricity, admitted that energy efficiency could have a potentially negative impact on company revenues, but that the impact would be small, and that energy efficiency was nevertheless key in the long run. All the members repeated the need for a more stringent governmental framework to cap emissions, saying that without the framework, the companies would find it more challenging to adopt environmentally sustainable measures. President George W. Bush's administration has rejected mandatory caps on emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases in the United States that contribute to a documented rise in world temperatures -- which is linked to more severe storms, worse droughts and rising sea levels. But the White House has recently been on the defensive, especially since the Feb. 2 release of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which called global warming "unequivocal" and said with 90 percent probability that human activities help cause it.

ITN Source | February 21, 2007

Tags:. .aimed. .motor. .documented. .columbia. .admitted