Business chiefs vow to lead fight against global warming

Daniel Rook, Yahoo News 15 Feb 08;

Some of the world's top companies vowed Friday to step up their efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, saying governments were failing to show sufficient leadership in the fight against global warming.

The declaration reflects a growing trend by global corporations waging war on climate change by taking steps to reduce or offset the amount of carbon dioxide belched out by their offices and factories.

A dozen corporations including Sony Corp., Nokia Corp., Nike Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. issued an urgent call for firms around the world to reduce the damage they inflict on the planet and to promote a "low-carbon lifestyle".

"There is no doubt that climate change is one of the most important issues of our time," Sony chief executive Howard Stringer told a meeting hosted by the Japanese electronics giant and the WWF environmental group.

"Governments are more easily distracted by the crisis of today than the crisis of tomorrow," he said. "We need to act now."

The companies, which describe themselves as "Climate Savers", did not announce any new goals for reducing their carbon dioxide emissions as they have already committed to individual targets.

Instead they pledged to urge their business partners and other companies to follow their lead, to develop energy efficient products and to encourage their customers to lead an environmentally friendly lifestyle.

"We are moving into a carbon-constrained world, a low carbon economy -- a new economy," said James Leape, director general of WWF International, which is supporting the initiative.

"We need champions. There are precious few political leaders in this world yet who are stepping up to the level of action that is required.

"Climate change would wreak havoc in natural systems of all kinds, from coral reefs to mountain forests, and it could cause -- if unchecked -- upheaval in all of our lives, and in the economies on which we depend," said Leape.

Companies that fail to embrace the green revolution may struggle in the future, business leaders said.

"I don't think ... any company is going to be able to survive if it is not working in a sustainable way," said Jaime Santafe, an environment advisor at Swiss-based packaging giant Tetra Pak.

The captains of industry issued their call as officials from the United Nations and 21 countries held a second day of talks in Tokyo as part of efforts to forge a new deal on fighting global warming by the end of next year.

The closed-door talks came ahead of negotiations in Bangkok from March 31 to April 4 on reaching a deal to succeed the landmark Kyoto Protocol, whose obligations on slashing gas emissions expire in 2012.

The world's second biggest economy after the United States, Japan is the home of the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark 1997 treaty that mandated cuts in greenhouse gas emissions heating up the planet.

But Japan is far behind in meeting its Kyoto commitments. The government has refused to legally bind companies to cap gas emissions, fearing that it could jeopardise the economy's slow recovery from recession in the 1990s.

The WWF urged Japan to do more.

"I am struck that we're not yet seeing Japan leading this issue the way one would expect, and I say that because Japan has been a leader in energy efficiency historically," Leape told reporters.

Japan aims to take a lead in the debate over measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions when it hosts this year's summit of leaders from the Group of Eight industrialised nations in July at the northern lakeside resort of Toyako.

"There's a great opportunity here for Japan to lead over the next year because the G8 is so important as a political lever," said Leape.