Vienna, Austria
August 29, 2007
Business Councils for Sustainable Energy from Australia, Europe,
United Kingdom and the United States and The Global Wind Energy Council
International Carbon Investors and Services
Distinguished Co-facilitators and delegates, thank you for the opportunity to present our views to the Fourth session of the Dialogue on Long-Term Cooperative Action.
My name is Jim Wolf and I am speaking on behalf of Australian, European, United Kingdom, and United States Business Councils for Sustainable Energy and the Global Wind Energy Council. The global alliance of business councils represents companies and trade associations worldwide, with a strong commercial interest in the expansion of sustainable energy and energy efficiency markets.
Our industries are reducing our own emissions, deploying and developing sustainable and energy efficiency technologies and are active in moving substantial capital into this area. Our organizations support a legally binding multilateral regime after 2012 to address climate change in order to provide signals to the marketplace that accelerate climate-responsible investments.
We have been pleased to provide input from our industries throughout the Dialogue process. As you prepare your reports to the COP/MOP meetings in Bali in December, we encourage you to note the vital role that existing clean and energy efficiency technologies will play in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions in the next ten to twenty years. It is essential that the multilateral climate change process send confident and consistent signals to the marketplace to accelerate deployment of energy efficiency and clean generation technology products and services, such as renewable energy and combined heat and power options.
To enable a significant increase in clean energy and energy efficiency in the near-term, governments need to adopt stronger and sustained government policies at the national level, such as research and development, tax incentives and new codes and standards. To accelerate deployment, these policies must be clear and stable to impact the investment cycle and be combined with a long-term market price for greenhouse gas emissions.
Since the Subsidiary Body meetings in May, the Councils joined a total of 22 business organizations in a statement to the Governments of the G8. These organizations have mainstream company members from Australia, Europe, the U.S, China and India; and span the utility sector, finance and investment institutions, manufacturers, retailers, and technology innovation companies. The statement affirmed that climate change is an urgent issue requiring strong national, regional and international action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, with developed countries taking leadership roles.
These business groups urged governments to:
- Agree in December 2007 at the global climate negotiations in Bali to conclude negotiations on such a global agreement by 2009.
- Agree during 2007 on elements of a stable long term market framework for low carbon technology development and deployment.
- Agree to maintain continuity in the legally binding frameworks underpinning the carbon market.
This statement demonstrates growing support from segments of the business community for continued multilateral action to address climate change and for the launch of a new negotiation round on a legally-binding post-2012 framework.
Our companies need to understand how policy will evolve over the next 10 to 15 years, and what further scale of action governments are anticipating to address climate change.
The work of the Dialogue is essential to forging agreements on future multilateral commitments. Thank you for the opportunity to provide input into your deliberations.