[Serenity]

Who would have thought we'd see the day that big business would be calling on government to reduce pollution but it's here with over 100 chairmans and CEOs putting their names to the measures suggested. Recommendations were delivered on Friday to the Japanese host of July's G8 summit, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

The business leaders suggest a combination of top-down international commitments by governments, particularly by developed economies but also including emerging economies, and practical bottom-up efforts within and across industry sectors in the form of a multifaceted agenda of intensified public-private cooperation. These efforts will be aimed at speeding the development and diffusion of low-carbon technologies, mobilizing financial support to help developing countries adopt such technologies, spurring changes in consumer purchasing behaviour, and establishing common metrics to create a positive dynamic of improved corporate benchmarking, disclosure and investment decision-making with respect to GHG mitigation.

At the same time, business leaders urge adoption of both a long-term goal, such as the aspiration to at least halve global GHG emissions by 2050, and a series of clear intermediate targets to be achieved in the most cost-effective manner possible through the use of market mechanisms that create clear economic value from emission reductions, including a deep and liquid international market for carbon.

Full article

[mollyL]

If as conservative a group as big business starts asking for programs to cut pollution, you've got to know something is afoot.

[Serenity]

It does make you wonder if they have an ulterior motive and what it is, I'll grant you that mollyL. Call me cynical but that's the first thought that sprung to my mind too, but maybe they just developed a conscience!

(Of course there could be tax incentives in it for them or something like that LOL.) Still, it's a step in the right direction.

[Roguegal]

With big business asking for programs to cut pollution it may actually happen. But I can bet right now that the cost of their products will increase even if they do get a tax.

[mollyL]

I'm wondering if Big Business has seen "the writing on the wall", and accepted that quite soon everyone is going to have to cut their emissions.Instead of the government coming to them and saying, "You have to cut your (huge) emissions and you've got two years to do it", they are coming to governments and saying, "We're cutting our emissions but we need support from you and a longer timetable to do it in." Since when has bid government ever denied big business anything?

[tater03]

I think that maybe they know that there is going to be change no matter what and in the long run it would be easier for them to meet the government half way.

[Roguegal]

Actually, it would be better if they beat the government to the punch. They could easily start cutting emissions in their factories for the government does anything. But, they probably won't do that because it means spending money.