Wazzup wif da corpse of Copenhagen? Something is rotten in Denmark...da dead prince lives; he must not be reading this thread.
Copenhagen Lures CEOs Seeking Certainty on Climate-Change Rules
By Kim Chipman and Alex Morales
Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank AG Vice Chairman Caio Koch-Weser says he will attend global climate talks in Copenhagen to push for clarity in how the world reduces greenhouse-gas emissions.
“Transparency, longevity and certainty” are what the clients of Germany’s biggest bank want most in a United Nations accord, Koch-Weser said in an interview. “A strong deal is essential to create the rules, price signals and risk-return incentives that business needs.”
The almost 200 countries that will meet starting Dec. 7 won’t be able to complete an agreement, the initial target for the Copenhagen gathering, UN officials have said. Every year of delay adds $500 billion to the minimum of $10 trillion in energy-industry investments needed over the next 20 years to move to a low-emissions world, according to the International Energy Agency based in Paris.
The event will draw a record number of corporate executives for a climate gathering, said Carlos Busquets of the International Chamber of Commerce. As many as 30 chief executive officers are scheduled to attend, including Coca-Cola Co.’s Muhtar Kent, Royal Dutch Shell Plc’sPeter Voser, Duke Energy Corp.’s James Rogers and China Power International’sLi Xiaolin.
“The level of interest among businesses is absolutely huge,” said Busquets, policy manager for the Paris-based International Chamber’s environmental and energy commission and a liaison between industry and the UN.
Obama, Wen
While completing an accord is now out of reach, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said Nov. 16 the sessions will help produce a treaty next year.
Koch-Weser of Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank said he’s optimistic that a “strong political agreement” can be reached in Copenhagen now that both the U.S. and China have put proposals on the table.
President Barack Obama will make an appearance at the meeting on Dec. 9 and the U.S. will propose cutting emissions about 17 percent by 2020, administration officials said last week. China has pledged to reduce its carbon intensity, the emissions per unit of gross domestic product, as much as 45 percent by 2020 and said Premier Wen Jiabao will go to Copenhagen.
While executives won’t participate directly in the formal talks in Copenhagen, a series of events will be open to them, including a “business day” Dec. 11 hosted by the Geneva-based World Business Council for Sustainable Development. That session will feature a discussion among CEOs from companies including Coca-Cola, Duke Energy and China Power.
Cap and Trade
Shell’s Voser said he will be following the talks closely for signals about how new rules would affect business for Europe’s biggest oil company.
“What we would like to have is a framework which allows us to start to invest in some of the technologies and projects in the longer term,” Voser said in an interview.
Voser is among business leaders pushing for a global “cap- and-trade” system, which would limit emissions from power plants and other sources and let companies buy and sell the right to pollute.
A worldwide version of the emissions-trading program already operating in Europe could constitute a market of more than $3 trillion by 2020, according to estimates by Point Carbon, an Oslo-based environmental analysis company.
“The framework conditions that will be decided upon in Copenhagen will be extremely important for the industry,” said Ola Morten Aanestad, spokesman for Statoil ASA, Norway’s biggest oil and gas producer. The company will send its CEO, Helge Lund, to the talks.
‘Making Progress’
U.S. executives going to Copenhagen will help get out Obama’s message that the country is moving toward a low-carbon economy, according to White House officials. Legislation to cap greenhouse-gas emissions has stalled in the U.S. Senate after passing the House, limiting the administration’s ability to make firm commitments at the talks.
“Some people are going to attempt to criticize the U.S. for no progress,” Rogers of Duke Energy said in an interview. “That’s why it’s so important for U.S. businesses to be there telling the story that we are making progress.”
Even without U.S. legislation limiting carbon-dioxide pollution, companies are making decisions “as if carbon will be regulated in the future,” Rogers said.
Kent, Coca-Cola’s CEO, will go to Copenhagen to “call for an effective deal on climate change,” Lisa Manley, the Atlanta- based company’s director of sustainability development, said. “We believe climate protection is good business.”
To Be or Not to Be
The soft-drink maker says on its Web site that it will reduce emissions from manufacturing in developed countries by 5 percent in 2015 from 2004 levels and improve the energy efficiency of more than 10 million coolers and vending machines by 40 to 50 percent by the end of 2010.
Among U.S. companies that also back climate-change legislation and say they will send senior executives to the talks are General Electric Co., the world’s second-largest producer of wind turbines; Dow Chemical Co., the biggest U.S. chemical producer; and Cisco Systems Inc., the world’s No. 1 maker of computer networking equipment.
Representatives of the Washington-based U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the biggest U.S. business-lobbying group, will be in Copenhagen too, and on the opposite side of some companies. The chamber is fighting against the bill passed by the House.
The argument will be joined on Dec. 12, when business representatives take part in a discussion at Kronborg Castle in Helsingor, just outside Copenhagen. It’s better known as Elsinore, the setting for William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”
The topic: “To Be, or Not to Be? New Leadership for a Sustainable Economy.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Kim Chipman in Washington at Kchipman@bloomberg.net; Alex Morales in London at Amorales2@bloomberg.net.
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