世界知名集團的執行長，例如維京集團（Virgin Group）創辦人Richard Branson與聯合利華集團（Unilever）執行長Paul Polman，正在呼籲世界領導人在今年12月巴黎的氣候談判中，承諾2050年前達到淨零溫室氣體排放的全球目標。
巴黎會議暖身 各國再談溫室氣體排放量
各國政府代表將加強去年12月在秘魯首都利馬的聯合國氣候變化框架公約（UNFCCC）中各國同意的草擬談判文本。
隨著各國開始下一回聯合國氣候變遷談判，企業在督促政府談判代表採取盡速終止溫室氣已排放的大膽氣候行動中，扮演著一個新的且又更突出的角色。
目前這回談判2月8日在日內瓦開啟，當中談判代表將促成一組今年年底在巴黎通過的新且又通用的氣候變遷協議的草擬文本。
促經濟轉型 企業籲停止補貼化石產業
Branson和Puma前執行長Jochen Zeitz，於2013年組成全球非營利組織，以發展一個「對人們和地球都有益」的經商新方法和團隊，並稱之為「B計劃」。
本月在一封給聯合國最高氣候官員Christiana Figueres的信中，包含塔塔國際（Tata International）的Ratan Tata和電信億萬富翁Mo Ibrahim在內的B團隊表示，藉由承諾2050年以前達到淨零溫室氣體排放，各國政府將證明他們正在將這個世界放置在一個乾淨且又低碳的軌道上。
B團隊督促各國政府「停止所有化石燃化補貼和轉移這個資金，來幫助擴展的價格實惠的可再生能源解決方案，使更廣泛的經濟轉型能夠可行。」
信中提到：「我們在2050年以前達到淨零溫室氣體排放的志向，建立在利馬的第20屆締約國周邊會議（COP20）氣候高峰會最近的會議中，而且是以一項最新科學研究評估、經營風險，和未能維持2°C門檻的經濟成本作為基礎。」
他們表示，企業將藉由嵌入氣候行動到他們的策略來做出回應，這將會推動潔淨能源的投資、擴大低碳服務與科技、創造就業，及支持經濟成長。
最後，這封信要求企業和政府「向失衡地遭受自氣候變遷及最不具備應付其影響的脆弱且又貧困的社區，保證對氣候變遷流反應的益處。」
「我們是認真的」 企業界聯名表態減碳
另一個團體「我們是認真的（We Mean Business）」，是一個與數千個公司和投資者合作的組織聯盟，已經對日內瓦的聯合國氣候變遷談判發起關鍵的「企業要求」。
這個團體將大膽的氣候行動刻劃為「歷史性的經濟機會」，表示藉由「投資政治資金在這十年之間上升的氣候志向、完成將在巴黎受到認同的新氣候協議的要素、推動國家貢獻到即將在志向頻譜最高點的氣候行動，以及承諾在這世紀末之前達到淨零排放」，企業預期談判將會為企業和環境帶來許多正面的影響。
「我們是認真的」在一項聲明中表示，這是「為了發動一波創新，提供一致且可預測的政治環境，是企業的唯一需求」。
正在協調聯合國氣候談判的Figueres表示，這些企業領導人正在呼籲政府設立解決氣候挑戰的目標。在2050年以前達成淨零溫室氣體排放的這項目標，即將發動一波志向和行動，轉移資金，及創造大量的就業成長。
世界企業永續發展委員會（WBCSD）總裁Peter Bakker表示，「創新企業越來越意識到大膽的氣候行動代表優越的回報。現在正是一個給更多企業，投入以科學為基礎的目標、減低氣候風險暴露，及為了人們和地球抓住歷史性機會的時機。」
「巴黎套組」 會前法律架構出爐
今年2月初，在解釋2014排名為紀錄上最熱的一年，為更大的氣候趨勢中的一部份時，世界氣象組織確認隨著全球暖化預期繼續，毀滅性的天氣模式和上升的溫度將持續到可預見的未來。「整體的暖化趨勢比個別年份的排名更重要，」世界氣象組織秘書長Michel Jarraud說。
非營利的世界資源研究所（WRI）表示，2015年的談判在充滿希望的結尾中展開。「我們用包含紐約的聯合國氣候高峰會、美中氣候行動協議（the US-China climate action agreement），和為綠色氣候基金（GCF）認捐超過1千億元的金額，來自2014年的動量進入今年。」WRI說。
談判代表將討論如何為了協議創造一個有效的合法架構。這個巴黎套組（Paris Package）將包含一些合法元件：協議本身和詳細解釋如何執行協議的一系列決議。
「有效地放置在一起，這個巴黎套組不只可能決定要做什麼，而且也決定如何做的一個執行計畫」，世界資源研究所表示。
一個關鍵的討論領域將是是否建立「行動周期」，在例如5年的規律間隔中，各國將在一個可預測的進度上，逐漸增加國內的行動計畫。
Business is taking a new, more prominent role in urging government negotiators to take bold climate action by quickly halting greenhouse gas emissions as countries begin their next round of UN climate change talks.
The talks opened days after the World Meteorological Organization confirmed that 14 of the 15 hottest years recorded have all been in the 21st century. The UN agency expects global warming to continue “given that rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the increasing heat content of the oceans are committing us to a warmer future.”
The current round of talks opened Sunday in Geneva where negotiators will advance the draft text of a new, universal climate change agreement set for adoption in Paris at the end of this year.
Government delegates, under the leadership of two new co-chairs, Ahmed Djoghlaf of Algeria and Dan Reifsnyder of the United States, will sharpen the draft negotiating text that countries agreed at the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC, in Lima last December.
The B Team, CEOs of some of the world’s largest companies such as Virgin founder Richard Branson and Unilever chief Paul Polman, are calling on world leaders to commit to a global goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 at the climate talks in Paris this December.
They urged business leaders to match this by committing to long-term targets.
In a February 5 letter to the UN’s top climate official, Christiana Figueres, the B Team leaders, who also include Tata International’s Ratan Tata and telecom billionaire Mo Ibrahim, say that by committing to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, governments will demonstrate they are setting the world on a clear, low-carbon trajectory.
“Our ambition – a global goal of net-zero greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 – builds on recent talks at the COP20 climate summit in Lima, and is grounded on an assessment of the latest scientific research, business risks and the economic costs of failing to keep within the 2°C threshold,” the B Team letter states.
They say businesses will respond by embedding climate action into their strategies, which will drive investment in clean energy, scale-up low-carbon services and technologies, create jobs and support economic growth.
The B Team letter urges governments “to end all fossil fuel subsidies, and to shift this capital to help scale affordable renewable energy solutions to enable wider economic transformation.”
Finally, the letter asks both businesses and governments “to ensure the benefits of responses to climate change flow to vulnerable and impoverished communities that suffer disproportionately from climate change and are least equipped to cope with its impacts.”
Branson and former Puma CEO Jochen Zeitz in 2013 formed the global nonprofit to help companies develop a new way of doing business — a Plan B — that puts “people and planet alongside profit.”
Another group, We Mean Business, a coalition of organizations working with thousands of companies and investors, has set out its key “business asks” to the UN climate change negotiations in Geneva.
Characterizing bold climate action as a “historic economic opportunity,” the group said that business expects the negotiations to help them capture that benefit by, “Investing political capital in increasing climate ambition during this decade, finalizing the elements of a new climate agreement that will be agreed in Paris, pushing for national contributions to climate action to be at the highest end of the ambition spectrum, and committing to net-zero-emissions well before the end of this century.”
This is “the only way to provide the consistent and predictable policy environment business needs to unleash a wave of innovation,” We Means Business said in a statement.
These business leaders are calling on governments to set targets that, if met, would address the climate challenge. This goal of net-zero GHG emissions by 2050 will unleash a wave of ambition and action, shift capital and create massive job growth,” said Figueres, who is coordinating the UN climate talks.
Peter Bakker, President, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, said, “Innovative businesses are increasingly aware that bold climate action represents superior returns. Both We Mean Business and New Climate Economy reports prove the point. Now it’s time for more businesses to sign-up to science-based targets, reduce their climate risk exposure and capture this historic opportunity for people and our planet.”
The nonprofit World Resources Institute says the 2015 negotiations open on a hopeful note. “We come into the year with momentum from 2014, which included the UN Climate Summit in New York, the US-China climate action agreement and more than $10 billion in pledges for the Green Climate Fund,” the organization said.
Negotiators will discuss how to create an effective legal architecture for the agreement. The Paris Package will include a number of legal components – the Agreement itself, as well as a series of decisions that spell out how to implement that Agreement.
“Put together effectively, the Paris package could not only decide what to do, but decide an implementation plan of how to do it,” says the World Resources Institute.
A key area of discussion will be whether or not to establish “cycles of action,” regular intervals at which countries will ramp up their domestic action plans, on a predictable schedule, such as every five years.
Countries decided in 2009 to keep global average temperature below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees F), but there is an opportunity to make that more specific, such as a goal to phase-out greenhouse gas emissions or fossil fuel use in the second half of the century.
Countries are also considering proposals for a long-term goal on adaptation, which could help build resilience in communities around the world.
Devastating weather patterns and increasing temperatures will last into the foreseeable future as global warming is expected to continue, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization, WMO, confirmed last week as it explained that 2014’s ranking as the “hottest year on record” is part of a
larger climate trend.
“The overall warming trend is more important than the ranking of an individual year,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud. “Analysis of the datasets indicates that 2014 was nominally the warmest on record, although there is very little difference between the three hottest years.”
High sea temperatures have contributed to exceptionally heavy rainfall and floods in many countries and extreme drought in others, the UN agency says.
Twelve major Atlantic storms battered the United Kingdom in early months of 2014, while floods devastated much of the Balkans throughout May. The monthly precipitation over the Pacific side of western Japan for August 2014, meanwhile, was 301 per cent above normal – the highest since area-averaged statistics began in 1946.
At the same time, crippling droughts struck the continental United States while Northeast China and parts of the Yellow River basin did not reach half of the summer average, causing severe drought.
Jarraud says the diverse climate impact which afflicted nations around the planet throughout 2014 were, in fact, consistent with the expectation of a
changing climate.
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In my healing journey and learning to attain the breath awareness, I become aware of the reality that all the creatures of the world are breathing the same breath. Take action, here and now. From my physical being to the every corner of this out of balance's planet.
