June 3, 2005—Business leaders from 13 major UK and international companies are offering to support the government in developing new, longer-term policies for tackling climate change.
In a letter addressed to Prime Minister Tony Blair, the companies argue that there is a need for urgent action to be taken now to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and offer to work in partnership with the government towards strengthening domestic and international progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They also pledge to engage other British businesses, the UK public and governments and businesses internationally to back this effort.
The group of CEOs and senior executives has come together under the auspices of the Prince of Wales’s Business and the Environment Program in response to a challenge issued by the prime minister in his climate change speech at the program’s tenth anniversary in September 2004.
In its letter, it argues that investing in a low-carbon future should be “a strategic business objective for UK. plc as a whole.” However, it points out that at present “the private sector and governments are in a ‘Catch 22’ situation with regard to tackling climate change, in which governments feel limited in their ability to introduce new climate change policy because they fear business resistance, while companies are unable to scale up investment in low-carbon solutions because of the absence of long-term policies.”
