哥本哈根會議：商界領袖減排誠意遭質疑

World business leaders gathered in Copenhagen today threw their support behind "ambitious and effective" global action on climate change at the UN climate conference that Denmark will host in December.

At the conclusion of the three-day World Business Summit on Climate Change, some 700 delegates from businesses around the world called for a new global climate treaty that sets targets for emissions reductions by 2020 and 2050 that limit the global average rise in temperature to a maximum of two degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels.

But the aid agency Oxfam International, which attended the Summit, called the declaration "disappointing." Oxfam Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs said, "The Summit's communique is unchanged from the draft that was written at the start of the meeting. It's a mystery how such influential and passionate voices could demand more urgency and specific commitments from the global business community ?from Ban Ki-Moon, to Al Gore, to progressive businesses ?only to be ignored in the final statement.

" In that final statement, business leaders declared their support for the scientific evidence in the Fourth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued in 2007. They expressed concern "that some recent scientific evidence suggests the problem may be worse than many of the IPCC estimates."

Samuel DiPiazza Jr., CEO of PricewaterhouseCoopers, recognized the frustration of participants such as Hobbs, saying the danger at this summit is too much self-congratulation among participants and not enough realistic discussion of what needs to be done before the Copenhagen negotiations in December and what needs to be done later. "I think we have to get down to the specifics," he said. "If we say we want to reduce emissions by 2050 by 40 to 50 percent, what will that take?

"Oxfam's Hobbs said the business leaders did not call for greenhouse gas emissions cuts that are deep enough to meet the scale of the climate change problem. "The Summit's statement is only a tiny step in pushing for the right political recipe when it could have been a giant stride. It asked for 50 percent global cuts by 2050 when we need at least 80 percent. It mentioned mid-term cuts by 2020 ?but gave no number, we need at least 40 percent in developed counties. It mentioned the importance of adaptation finance to poor countries ?but again no number, we need at least $50 billion a year," Hobbs said. "These are all deal-breaking issues that this Summit should have tackled but did not."

Environmental and aid groups attending include: Greenpeace International, WWF International, Oxfam, and the Bellona Foundation from Norway.

The largest political conference ever held in Denmark, participants are expected from most of the 192 countries represented in the United Nations, both from governments and from civil society. All together, up to 15,000 official representatives are expected to participate.