COP17: Business and Government Must Work Together to Make Policy
Reports that some of the richest nations, including the USA, Japan, Canada and Russia, alongside Brazil and Indiaplan to delay a global treaty on climate changehas cast doubt and concern around the feasibility of any global agreements being achieved or meaningfully progressed at the UNFCCC's (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17), which start today in Durban.
联合国环境规划署（UNEP）Achim Steiner执行董事，在令人沮丧的消息中非常清楚，这是一个新的条约，直到2020年，而不是明年被续签，因为京都协议结束了。
Steiner believes that the reported decisions are "very high risk" and worries that they are based on "political choice" rather than science. While most governments are in support of reducing emissions and promoting sustainable economic systems, the financial crisis appears to be nudging some powerful governments to u-turn on promises of greening the economy and transitioning to low carbon societies.
The need to decouple emissions from economic growth is clearly stronger now more than ever as we reach this crucial Kyoto Agreement juncture.
What we see happening instead is governments once again looking for a short term fix rather than the long term solution. There is no doubt that the financial crisis, which started in 2008 and continues today, was caused in part by unregulated short term risk taking.
The lack of an ambitious global deal to reduce emissions is echoing and amplifying such risk on the climate system, of which we have less control than of the financial system. What is needed now is strong political leadership to avoid increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events around the world as science predicts and as we are already seeing.
Economic and environmental needs do not have to be mutually exclusive. T he latest global analysis contained in the CDP Global 500 report, shows a correlation between the companies that best manage their carbon emissions and climate change strategies and strong financial performance.
就在几个月前，心情更积极，正如超过2000人在线调整的人，观看来自世界各地的八个地方的金融，商业和政治领导人都通过远程呈现。这些有影响力的数字包括Christiana Figueres，UNFCCC和C-Suite高管在包括纤维，FTSE，Jones Lang Lasalle，Kingfisher，PWC和Schroders等公司的C-Suite高管，共同为碳披露项目（CDP）全球论坛讨论了推进可持续，有利可图，业务增长。
Representatives at the Global Forum agreed that sustainable, profitable, business growth is possible but thatbusinesses and governmentsneedopen dialogue with each otherto achieve the gigaton scale of emissions reductions required to avoid dangerous climate change.
Businesses urged for clearer, long term policy and reassurance that governments were able to strike the balance to achieve sustainable economic growth. Christiana Figueres called for更积极，积极的业务参与on climate change and much greater conversation between the two groups.
"From our perspective, what we really need out of visionary companies," said the UNFCCC Executive Secretary, "is to have very active engagement with the decision makers, with the policy makers who decide policy at home and internationally."
Christiana Figueres继续强调企业能够提供政策制定者compelling arguments for robust policy:
有一群严肃的公司，具有更响亮的声音，更好的资金，齐声器在统一中运营得多，仍然陷入昨天的技术。如果我们没有与至少与引人注目的参数同样策划的声音，那么政府将采取非常胆小的决策，他们不会倾向于划船......你们所有人当然，欢迎来到我们的会议，但如果您希望您将通过在德班的警察通过政府决定，您将向太晚推广。
随着气候变化谈判本周开始，德班的各方试图伪造全球解决方案，显而易见的是企业和政治社区是否以建设性的方式发生了足够的积极参与。
However, this dialogue should be transparent from the start to avoid corporations manipulating a political process to protect citizens. This is why CDP has been asking companies to disclose their climate change lobbying practices publicly alongside disclosure of their climate change strategies and carbon emissions.
Do governments and businesses understand one another enough to have successful dialogue in order to create common climate change goals and establish viable mechanisms for achieving them? The answer to this question appears to be not yet, and therefore we urgently need to ensure sustained positive engagement between business and policy makers in order to create the required understanding.
This is fundamental to ensuring successful action and international policy on climate change. It not only makes business sense to move forward, but the alternative is one that none of us can afford to consider.
Photo from COP17 CC-licensed by联合国气候变化框架公约》.
