GLOBAL ROUNDTABLE WANTS CAPS

As discussed by Jeffrey Sachs and PBS's Charlie Rose:

Business calls for carbon targets
20 february 2007 (BBC News)
- …The Global Roundtable on Climate Change, which includes more than 80 big companies, says politicians need to agree new targets for carbon emissions.

- Targets should be "scientifically informed", they say, and lead to pricing carbon in a global market as a route to cutting emissions…
- While many business groups have called for political action on climate over the last few years, not all have sought binding targets on emissions.
- Some have argued that voluntary actions are a better route.
- But the Global Roundtable, which includes companies such as Air France, the aluminium giant Alcoa, re-insurers Swiss Re and Munich Re as well as energy companies Electricite de France and Centrica, is unequivocal in saying that politicians need to reach a new binding deal beyond the current Kyoto Protocol targets which expire in 2012…
- And in language drawn from the Kyoto Protocol, which cuts through the Bush Administration's often-stated contention that China and India need to adopt

emissions targets, the statement continues: "Commitments for actions by individual countries should reflect differences in levels of economic development and GHG emission patterns and the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities."
- The statement was issued a few hours after European environment ministers agreed in principle to cut emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2020.
- Progress towards a new round of global targets, and a worldwide carbon market, has stalled in recent years, partly because of lobbying by companies in the opposite ideological corner to the Global Roundtable…