Caring for Climate: Businesses must go fast and set new reduction standards
hace 11 year
Within the framework of COP 20 of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, the Business Forum «Caring for Climate 2014: Innovation, Ambition and Collaboration» was held. The event was held in the Main Auditorium of the “Voices for Climate” fair at the Jockey Club. An important call was made to the world's entrepreneurs to be attentive to the information provided by science about the effects of Climate Change.
«We need to be well informed to be fully aware that there is a problem. Only then will we assume the consequences and take action,» said the Minister of Environment and President of COP20 in Lima, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, at the forum. Pulgar-Vidal highlighted the need to understand that we are already suffering the consequences of Climate Change and that it is not about the future but about the present that we all live in.
«Science has already warned us that the temperature has risen by almost 0.85 degrees Celsius and that this could increase to 4.0 degrees by the end of the century, when we should not exceed 2.0 degrees. It is urgent to recognize that policies are adaptable to the business sector as well,» he noted.
Jean Pascale, vice-president of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, mentioned that Climate Change has a human influence and that the irreversible impacts of Greenhouse Gas emissions are already affecting people and nature.
Adolfo Heeren, president of Cálidda, said: «we are playing against our destiny and it is the planet that dictates the rules. The cards have already been shown and it is time to play because we are facing a new revolution. It is going to depend on us to play the right way».
The panel: “How companies can lead the Climate Agenda” included the participation of Eduardo Durand, climate advisor of MINAM, who said that there are currently opportunities that we can miss if we fail to take advantage of the time to take action. He also urged the attendees to “not start from the center, but from the periphery of the problem to reach more concrete solutions”.
The panel also featured Mandy Rambharos, Eskom's Climate Change and Sustainability Manager, who stated that Climate Change must be taken into account along with the other problems currently affecting the world, such as poverty and unemployment. “It is time to focus on society and take action,” she concluded.
Another panel that took place during the forum was “Are you aligning emission reduction targets with climate science?”, which featured a keynote address by Joseph Alcamo, professor and executive director of the Center for Environmental Systems Research at the University of Kassel, who said that if we want to maintain the 2 degrees Celsius target, “we must meet certain challenges and give sustainable energy a chance before 2020”.
“If they want to be seen as leaders, they have to be bolder,” he concluded.
The closing plenary was given by Peter Bakker (WBCSD), Brice Lalonde (Global Compact Network France) and Christiana Figueres (Executive Secretary of the United Nations), who concluded the session by saying that business must go fast and set new carbon reduction standards.
He ended the event with the following sentence: “We have to know where we are going to make it cheaper, more efficient and faster”.
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