COP15 Bursting at the Seams

It's the end of the first week at COP15 in Copenhagen and there seems to be never a dull moment in endeavouring to thrash out a robust agreement on climate change.

Having spent most of the week amongst 15,000 people (according to the UN over 30,000 people have actually been registered) at the climate change negotiations to say things have been hectic is a huge understatement. With so many different stakeholder groups represented here you can imagine the varying views and opinions which are being voiced in the halls of the Bella Center. Not one day goes by without some kind of demonstration or protest alerting attendees to the huge effects that climate change is having on our planet.

What strikes me at this COP (I've been to two previously) is that there seems to be a real urgency on behalf of the NGO Business Community to try and push things forward with the ultimate goal that COP15 could result in binding emissions targets which really start to put the international community on the right trajectory towards avoiding a 2 degree rise in temperature. Indeed, the business community over recent years has been a growing and powerful voice in calling for governments to do more in relation to climate change. No longer are these calls just coming from businesses which are directly involved, they have now transcended their boundaries and are being voiced much more widely.

A great example of this has been the Copenhagen Comminuque which was signed by over 500 international businesses calling for an ambitious, robust and equitable deal on climate change (www.copenhagencommunique.com). Signatories included a diverse range of companies such as; Cisco, Diageo, eBay, HP, Nestle, O2, Timberland and Virgin. What is really great to see in 2009 is that so many companies ultimately realise that if nothing is done now to achieve a credible deal then businesses will suffer.

So let's just pretend for a minute that we did end up with a solution at COP15 which addressed the critical issue outlined above. Then being an optimistic person who also works for a private sector organisation involved in the carbon market, what else would be needed?

Well a start would be a strong signal that the private sector and the carbon markets, including flexible mechanisms continuing to play an important role in achieving the world's emissions reductions. Currently the Kyoto Protocols single most effective emissions reduction policy, the CDM, is at best a secondary consideration for the majority of negotiators. Over the next few days I'm sure the business community would appreciate some positive signals coming out of proceedings which would inspire the confidence that will be needed if 50 billion of private capital (which is what the UK government estimates is needed) is to be mobilised in a timely fashion to really help to mitigate the effects of climate change.

So let's see what happens next week when more people will arrive in Copenhagen to attend COP15 and this place really does burst at the seams.

Photo Credit: Flickr