Raising the Stakes
 
As work gets underway this week at the COP 15 climate change summit in Copenhagen, "messages" have poured in from a wide variety of public and private sector sources to remind negotiators and policy makers in both Copenhagen and Washington, D.C. that their actions are being watched closely, and that inaction will be received poorly.
 
First, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued an "endangerment finding" declaring that greenhouse gases are a danger to public health, clearing the way for the agency to act, without Congress if necessary, to develop tough rules to control emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Read their lips: Action will be taken, one way or another ...
 
Second, corporate announcements of new reduction commitments and investments continued apace, providing tangible illustration of the potential benefits of effective policy action in areas ranging from electrical utilities and corporate fleets, to the operations of major retail chains. If players such as Coca-Cola and Greenpeace, Progress Energy, the U.S. EPA, the global cement industry, Environmental Defense and a wide variety of corporate fleet operators -- just to name a few -- can work together on a voluntary basis to get all this done, how much more is possible with a workable global policy framework? Message: Some of us are doing our part, we need you to do yours.
 
As I and many others have pointed out before, COP 15 is better seen as a beginning than an end in itself, but the national leaders and their negotiating teams in Denmark have it in their power to give our collective efforts a major boost.

Eric Olson is senior vice president of advisory services at BSR.

The latest in our series of GreenBiz Reports explores and outlines the 10 best practices for bringing all your employees on board with your company's sustainability projects.

This report gives a detailed look at what efforts need to be pushed forward to lower the cement industy's emissionsby 18 percent by 2050: efficiency technologies for kilns, alternative fuels, substituting materials within cement and using carbon capture and storage.

Mark your calendars for two 2010 State of Green Business Forums, in San Francisco and Chicago. These one-day information-packed events coincide with the release of GreenBiz.com’s “State of Green Business 2010,” the acclaimed annual status report on corporate environmental trends and progress.