COPENHAGEN—Top executives from companies likely
to win from climate change policies demanded on Tuesday that
governments turn away from fossil fuels when they sign a new climate
pact, expected in December.
Seven months before the world meets to try and
thrash out a new global treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol,
executives and investors called for tough targets to slash carbon
emissions at a green business conference in Copenhagen.
Denmark’s Prime Minister welcomed a statement
drawn up by top executives from pro-green business, including wider
industry comments, calling for aid to help clean technologies
replace fossil fuels.
"There’s only one way forward and that is
low-carbon growth, our world should no longer depend on fossil
fuels," said Lars Lokke Rasmussen, prime minister of a country which
gets a fifth of its power from wind, and which hosts the UN-led
climate negotiations in December.
"You hold in your hands the key to reshaping the
world by bringing low-carbon products to the markets," he told more
than 500 executives attending the May 24-26 World Business Summit on
Climate Change.
A "Copenhagen Climate Council" of 12 chief
executives, as well as academics and development groups wrote a
final statement which called for greenhouse gases to peak within a
decade. They included the chiefs of DONG Energy, Vestas, Duke
Energy, Virgin Group, Suntech Power and others.
"The new climate treaty must push the development
of new technologies through public funds," said the statement in its
"Copenhagen Call." "Governments should strive to end subsidies that
favor high emissions transport and energy infrastructure."
UN climate chief Yvo de Boer told a news
conference that while the participants had showed they want
ambitious results in Copenhagen, they were "not entirely
representative."
"There are many companies that feel threatened by
the prospect of badly designed climate policy," he said.