Leaders from influential global corporations and key global environmental organizations are expected to call on countries to make a success of this years UN climate negotiations in Mexico.
The call will come from a Business for Environment (B4E) conference to be held 4 to 5 October in Mexico City. The event today was announced by the Mexican Minister of Environment Juan Rafael Elvira, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Achim Steiner, the Director General of WWF-Mexico Omar Vidal and the Chief Executive of Global Initiatives, Tony Gourlay.
B4E will raise the global business voice ahead of the 16th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP16), at Cancun, from 29 November to 10 December.
Mr Steiner said: “There remains a serious and significant greenhouse gap between the ambition of nations and the science. This needs to be bridged if the world is to have a chance of keeping a global temperature rise under 2 degrees C. Cancun offers the next opportunity to accelerate a transition to a low carbon, Green Economy. One option is to address non-CO2 pollutants such as methane and black carbon –these represent low hanging fruit with potentially immediate benefits for climate as well as for public health to agricultural production”.
In a declaration to be finalized at the talks, company and civil society leaders are expected to urge the governments of the world to make the climate negotiations in Cancun a success and call for creation of legal frameworks for a rapid transition to a low carbon economy.
Key note speakers include Al Gore, the former US Vice President and global advocate for climate action, Barbara Kux, Chief Sustainability Officer at Siemens AG, Daniel Servitje, Chief Executive Officer, Grupo Bimbo, George Kell, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact, Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada, Secretary of Environment of Mexico, Georgina Kessel, Secretary of Energy of Mexico, and James Leape, Director-General and CEO of WWF International.
