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| A young marcher in Sunday's People's March in New York City. As marchers on Monday continued to call for more action to address the climate crisis, corporate leaders gathered in midtown to chart a low-carbon future. Photo by XiaoZhi Lim/Daily Climate. |
As
protesters rally to 'stop capitalism,' corporate leaders plot a path to a
low-carbon future.
NEW YORK – Two views of multinational corporations and their
role in the climate crisis clashed in the world's financial capital Monday.
Thousands of protesters converged on lower Manhattan in a "flood Wall
Street" action, with a rallying cry to "stop
capitalism" – described by organizers as "the root cause"
of the crisis.
At the same time in midtown Manhattan, a 90-year-old museum and
library dedicated to the memory of financier J.P. Morgan played host as
executives from some of the most successful companies on Earth pledged to lead
the way to a low-carbon future.
"We never try to steer the consumer," said Tim Cook,
chief executive of Apple. "We try to provide them something really, really
great, that when they see it, they couldn't live without it."
Not
the next iPhone
Cook didn't unveil a new climate solution that will have people
lining up as for an iPhone 6. But he expressed faith that Apple can play a
transformative role with steps like its drive for 100 percent renewable energy
in its data centers. "We are transparent about what we are doing at the
product level, and that will drive consumer behavior," he said. "If
you have enough companies doing that, consumers will vote with their
dollars."
CEOs assembled at the Morgan Library as part of an upbeat,
corporate-oriented pep rally one day in advance of the United Nations' Climate
Summit, the largest gathering of heads of state to discuss climate change since
the ill-fated 2009 UN session at Copenhagen. The gathering, Climate
Week NYC, was organized by non-profits that focus on the
potential of business-environmental partnerships, The
Climate Group and CDP,
a nonprofit helping companies measure and disclose environmental impacts.
Climate Week participants sought to claim kinship with the
People's March that saw a reported 300,000 take to New York's streets on
Sunday.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, appearing before the
business group, recounted linking arms with New York Mayor Bill Di Blasio and
joining the protest, the most ardent he had witnessed since pro-democracy
rallies in his youth in Korea. "I hope the leaders of the world are
listening to these yearnings and aspirations," he said.
Part
of the problem?
Although Monday's Climate Week session focused mostly on win-win
stories of companies adopting clean energy and efficiency, there was
acknowledgement that some members of the business fraternity have been part of
the carbon emissions problem.
"Let's face it. There's a private sector, and there's
another private sector," said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of
the United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change. "That other
private sector has a coordinated voice and it's pretty well funded. So the fact
that you've all come together is a huge, huge plus."
Figueres said the People's March was "a very, very fervent
call" for action. "Today, the message coming from you," she
said, addressing the business leaders, "is that we can address climate
change. We have the ingenuity."
"Tomorrow my expectation is that governments will step up
and answer," she added.
World Bank President Jim Young Kim appeared at the corporate
session to announce the formation of a new Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition,
with 73 national and 11 regional governments and more than 1,000 companies and
investors that support putting a price on carbon. And a group of businesses –
including IKEA, Swiss Re, BT, Formula E, H&M, KPN, Mars, Nestlé, and
Philips – announced launch of an initiative to get 100 of the world's biggest
companies to commit by 2020 to using 100 percent renewable power.
Not
enough
But in an acknowledgement that voluntary action by companies
will not be enough, some of the executives noted that the biggest stumbling
block they face in this drive is the lack of clear regulatory guidance.
Steve Howard, chief sustainability officer of the IKEA Group,
said wavering government commitment on clean energy has held up or halted
"screwdriver-ready projects" on renewable energy.
"We know where the wind is, we know where the sun is. The
technology is extremely predictable.
We know how to get the projects
done," he said. "The only uncertainty we face is policy
uncertainty."
Secretary of State John Kerry, who delivered the keynote address
at Monday's daylong session, said that one of the greatest frustrations in the
international talks is the failure by governments to see the economic benefits
of action.
"Think of the jobs that could be created," he said.
The energy economy is "the mother of all markets."
A
'parallel GDP'
Robert Rubin, the former Goldman Sachs executive who served as
U.S. Treasury Secretary during the Clinton administration, told the gathering
that he believes that one reason for national and international inaction is
that economic reports and projects fail to incorporate the profound impacts and
potential impacts of climate change.
Government fiscal projections should be including climate change
impacts, he said. He called for development of a "parallel GDP" that
incorporates the projected irreversible and cumulative impact that build-up of
greenhouse gas can have on the planet and economic output.
"The non-linearity of the risks is what has most troubled
me," he said. "These are risks we cannot put off. We absolutely must
act now."
Marianne
Lavelle is a staff writer for The Daily Climate, an independent news service
covering energy, the environment and climate change. Follow her on Twitter @mlavelles.
Photo
(from left): Philip Ryan, Chairman, Swiss re America Holding Corp.; Steve
Howard, chief sustainability officer, IKEA Group; Kevin Rabinovitch, global
director of sustainability, Mars Inc.; Ben Ferrari, director of corporate
sponsorships, The Climate Group; unidentified man (far right). Photo by
Marianne Lavelle/The Daily Climate.
Find
us on Twitter @TheDailyClimate or email editor Douglas Fischer at
dfischer [at] DailyClimate.org