May 8
Entre el 24 y el 26 de mayo tendrá lugar en Copenhague el World Business Summit on Climate Change, que contará con la asistencia de Ban Ki-Moon, Secretario General de Naciones Unidas, y de unos 1.000 representantes de empresas, ONGs y gobiernos. Este encuentro, organizado por el Copenhagen Climate Council junto al Pacto Mundial de Naciones Unidas, el World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), el Climate Group,
También hemos asistido recientemente a otro encuentro "preparatorio" de la cumbre de diciembre, en este caso en Washington, a finales de abril, con la participación de las 17 potencias económicas responsables de tres cuartas partes de los gases invernadero. Tras la reciente declaración de la Agencia de Protección Ambiental estadounidense (EPA), afirmando por primera vez que el dióxido de carbono y otros gases invernadero "ponen en peligro" la salud y el bienestar públicos, el representante especial sobre cambio climático de Obama, Todd Stern, se mostró optimista la semana pasada en Washington sobre las posibilidades de alcanzar un acuerdo en Copenhague, si bien reconoció su dificultad. De hecho, parece bastante probable que la propuesta demócrata de establecer un sistema de limitación y comercio de emisiones en EEUU vea pospuesta su aprobación hasta el próximo año.
Recuperando mis anteriores posts sobre el tema (http://energyandindustry.blogs.ie.edu/2008/04/el-tren-de-bali-a-copenhague-p.html; http://economy.blogs.ie.edu/archives/2007/12/de_bali_a_copen.php), ¿llegará el tren puntualmente y con todos sus pasajeros, o lo perderemos una vez más?
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April 24
Hace unos días se celebró en Bangkok la primera de las cuatro rondas de negociación internacional sobre cambio climático que tendrán lugar durante 2008, arrancando así el programa de trabajo que se acordó el pasado mes de diciembre en Bali. "The train to Copenhagen has left the station", exclamó a su conclusión Yvo de Boer, secretario ejecutivo del United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, curiosamente en línea con el título del post publicado en diciembre en los blogs del IE [1]
April 9
Companies that make direct use of natural resources are nowadays frequently confronted with situations in which they need to make a decision about exploiting or not resources critically located in pristine areas, such as Alaska, Antarctica or any of the few remaining pockets of rain forest. A good example is the oil and gas exploitation that has been going for the last two decades in the tropical forests of South America (Ecuador, Peru and others). In such situations, company leaders might face the dilemma of either trying to increase shareholder value by exploiting those resources, of course both within legal and ethical limits, or respond to a more diffuse kind of moral expectation by stakeholders elsewhere and give way to a competitor to exploit the resources.
At any rate, in practical terms, the result would be that neither the governments of the countries involved nor the business community would find an incentive enough to simply stop a preserve untouched those unique spots, which somehow represent to us the bio history of our planetary evolution. Of course, the governments involved could quite rightly argue that western economies have for centuries depleted their own natural resources and that now it is not fair that ask others to do the sacrifice that they do not do. At least not for free.
When confronted with this kind of situation some people think of eco tourism could be an alternative away to generate income for the communities and countries involved. Yet, eco tourism by its own definition has to be kept within a small scale and cannot, with a few honorable exceptions, generate enough alternative cash.
That was more or less my own troubled conception, and have many times wondered if we could find market mechanism that would bring the power of the financial and industrial powers of the world to work for preservation. The new round of the climate change discussion started at Bali last year started to put additional light into this kind of issues. But one the first, and most impressive pure market economy instrument I have seen, and I must say that I really captured by the concept, can be found at http://canopycapital.co.uk/. Just a few days ago, Canopy Capital entered into a partnership with the Iwokrama International Centre in Guyana to measure and place a financial value on the “Ecosystem Services” rendered to the word by the Iwokrama’s tropical forest. The idea is that somehow the economic community would then find reasons to pay for those services and that the income stream would deter any intent to destroy the forest. Canopy Capital intents to do this by creating some sort of certificate that companies and others would like to buy.
One way for this to happen, would be that as companies evolve their Corporate Social Responsibility programs into more articulated and sensible actions they could find value in communicating to their stakeholders that they are supporting the forest.
Another way would be for governments elsewhere to allow the cost of these certificates to deductible for our income tax reports. In Spain, the current tax regulation only allows you to indicate generally to which kind of organization you want your donation to go (either church or NGOs). I would very happily buy Iwokrama certificates if I could deduct the cost from my income statement. It seems to me that it would be money well spent.
I hope these folks at Canopy Capital succeed.
