The New Nation - Internet Edition

Mostafa Kamal Majumder

Ever since the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in February last year with 'high confidence' that human activities are responsible for the earth's warming, global response to climate change has been gaining momentum. And against this backdrop a two-day global summit on 'Business for the Environment' organised in Singapore on 22 and 23 of this month reflected on the role of business in slowing the impact of climate change that threatens the human race with unforeseen devastating consequences.

The United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), the voice for the environment in the UN System, brought together key businesses, leading environmental activists, scientists in the highly developed modern city state to focus on collaborative action, resource efficiency and renewable energy with a view to helping reduce carbon dioxide emissions into the environment and saving the planet earth from environmental degradation.

The United Nations Global Compact, global initiatives, along with global actors in the business arena - The DOW Chemical Company, OSRAM, world's first energy saving lamp inventor; Siemens, Senoko, world's largest steel company Arcelor Mittal, Honda Motor, Hyflux, Spectrum, Edelman, Singapore's ministry of environment and water resources, Singapore Tourism Board, CNN, TIME, the Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Limited (APRIL) and Suntec Singapore worked together highlighting the steps already taken by them for the conservation of the global environment and the future steps they are planning for this.

The businesses tried their best to impress upon the delegates attending the conference on how they have taken steps to for energy efficiency, sustainable resource utilisation, and recycling of wastes with a view to restricting waste dumping to the minimum. In fact, the summit was told that adoption of environment-friendly technologies to keep the world habitable for future generations is also a business proposition. The question thus is pursuing business ethically causing little harm to the environment.

Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, president of the Maldives - a leading campaigner for the environment as his country, with the highest elevation of only three metres above the mean sea level, faces the perilous threat of being swallowed up if sea level rise continues unabated - and who was one of the resource persons at the meet, made use of the opportunity to publish his book 'Paradise drowning'.

An added attraction of the meet was the distribution of the Unep Champions of the Earth Awards 2008 to Prince Albert II of Monaco, Abdul Quader Ba Jamal, former Prime Minister of Yemen, Senator Timothy E. Wirth of the United States, Liz Thopmson, former minister of environment and energy of Barbados, Dr A Atiq Rahman of Bangladesh, Dr. Balgis Osman-Elasha of Sudan, and Unep special prize for champions of the earth recepient Helen Clerk, prime minister of New Zealand for their notable contributions to sustainable development. Senator Timothy E. Wirth and Helen Clerk could not come and their representatives received the awards.

A notable feature of the meet was the absence of propaganda materials against conclusions made by the UN IPCC on climate change. Obviously this was an outcome of the acceptance beyond any iota of doubt by the scientific community the manifestation of climate change and its adverse impacts. Only pro-environment publicity materials brought by sponsors of the summit were available at its sidelines. Those who used to oppose IPCC findings and conclusions in the past probably see no further opportunity to do so. World leaders now debate mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions at the G8 summit and strategies to tackle climate change at the United Nations General Assembly and a meeting convened by the United States. They were also aware that in December last year the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali ended with policy-makers from 190 countries agreeing on a roadmap for negotiations for a post-2012 climate change agreement.

The meeting was told activities of national governments remained restricted to geographic boundaries, while those of big businesses spread to the globe. The businesses, thus, have a great responsibility to help ensure sustainable use of the world's resources so as not to jeopardise the needs and requirements of the future generations. Six working groups that brain stormed on as many key issues at the fag end of the meet came up with recommendations for efficient use of resources keeping the future in view and getting consumers to attracted environment-friendly products. Experts at the meet felt that lots of innovations and efforts would be needed to introduce high-tech energy efficient products to the market.

The business for the environment summit underlined the need for streamlining financing investments in climate-friendly productions, and subsidies, particularly in the developing countries, for this. They felt that energy efficient building construction should be promoted because buildings consume 40 per cent of energy produced. Architects and planners should be sensitised to this and standards should be set by way of new building codes.

They called for raising awareness about efficient technologies for harnessing renewable energy. The bio-fuel and food issue was debated, so was the question of nuclear energy which was favoured by some experts and opposed by others. Solar energy was considered costly by some of them. Experts at the meet talked about hybrid renewable energy systems and called for making cost-benefit analyses of different systems for discussion at the next environmental conference in Copenhagen.

Achim Steiner, the Executive Directior of Unep, told the summit that environmental parameters would determine perceptions of the market of tomorrow when efforts would be made to turn economies greener and greener. Those who would fall behind would miss the bus. Such debate and discussion should be continued to turn those into national policies, he added.

Georg Kiel, Executive Director, UN Global Compact, noted the emphasis put at the summit on sound government leadership for eco-friendly development and said that trade and investment are fundamental to that. He said that competition and innovation should be the driving forces for rapidly popularising the environment-friendly solutions.

Aron Cramer, CEO, Business for Social Responsibility, made mention of an immense potential for a fair and integrated global community for sustainable development. That's also a challenge, he said adding massive investments would be needed to determine what should be produced by the year 2050. "We should start today as we did not start yesterday," he added.