Global business leaders meeting Wednesday in Warsaw endorsed the United Nations' drive to clinch a new global framework to curb climate change at its December 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen. “Business is a solution to the climate change crisis,” Lars G. Josefsson, president and CEO of European power giant Vattenfall, told reporters after roundtable talks of business leaders on climate change. Josefsson is also the coordinator of the Combat Climate Change 3C initiative grouping 55 multi-national corporations, including General Electric, AIG, Citigroup, BP, Siemens, Hitachi, the China Oil Offshore Company, Volvo, Tata Power, HP and Vattenfall, among others. “We were here today to create a critical mass for Poznan (UN climate summit December 2008) and ahead of the 2009 Copenhagen summit,” Josefsson said, noting a “great deal of optimism in the room despite the global economic downturn. “Business leaders must show the leadership, focus, and spirit of common understanding that has been lacking in the political process,” he said. The European Union's efforts to adopt a strategy to cut CO2 emissions by 20 percent - compared to 1990 emission levels - by 2020 in December are in danger of being torpedoed by vetos from Italy and heavily coal-dependent Poland, raising fears that Europe's global leadership on climate policy could falter. Environmental groups also warn the global financial crisis cannot be used as an excuse to postpone slashing global carbon dioxide emissions in order to curb global warming to under two degrees Celsius by the end of this century. Global investment in green technology in 2007 approached $150 billion, up 40 percent from 2006, according to Dr. Steve Howard, CEO of The Climate Group. Vattenfall recently opened a zero CO2 emission coal fired power plant in eastern Germany using the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology.
