Message to the G8: Use Climate Commitments to Restore Trust

Authors

• Farid Baddache

  Former Managing Director, BSR

At the G8 talks in Italy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel seemed confident that the G8 would limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius. But we should be pessimistic about how these discussions have carried forward the global agenda on climate change mitigation. A success at COP15 is still a very long way off.

The problem lies with the misunderstanding between global political leaders and the business community, between “rich” and “emerging” economies—all were hit by the economic crisis, all have been impacted by the collapse of public trust, and yet all are missing the opportunity to use action on climate change as part of the solution.

At a recent OECD forum, I spoke with Chinese and Brazilian business leaders who are concerned about how climate change will impact their business—with or without regulation. The question for them (and indeed for all business leaders) is whether they need to anticipate new market rules for carbon mitigation, and whether they need to anticipate the ways climate change will impact their business—regardless whether public authorities enact concrete legislation.

The devil is in the detail. About a decade ago, the EU issued cap-and-trade schemes that have revealed numerous limits on how business leaders will embed the carbon question in their decision-making: The rules were too limited in scope (they didn’t include transportation!), too generous in granting emission rights to companies (resulting in pricing distortion), and too short-sighted (how do you force a cement company to think about investments in 20 to 40 years if the market can’t provide an accurate picture of what will happen in five years?).

It’s time to look back at these lessons from Europe to build a more robust global framework, helping restore trust in the business community.

The missing piece in all these debates is the fact that we’re all in this together. Rather than splitting hairs about who’s responsible for which emissions, we need to look at climate change policies holistically as a way to rebuild trust in the global economy. I can’t help repeating to myself that quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.”