Business Assesses Impact of Kyoto at Climate Change Talks

International business leaders are in New Delhi this week to contribute to United Nations-brokered talks on climate change and examine how international companies might operate in a world where not all countries have ratified the Kyoto Protocol.

Representatives of companies from across the spectrum of industry will use the meeting – officially the Eighth Conference of Parties (COP8) held under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change – to analyze the impact that piecemeal ratification of Kyoto by governments could have on companies with operations in many different countries.

The business delegation to New Delhi is coordinated by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the Paris-based group widely viewed as the world’s leading business organization. USCIB is ICC’s American affiliate.

More than 3,000 delegates from 185 countries are expected to participate in the 10-day conference.

Business groups have released a number of documents in preparation for COP8. In a paper released by ICC, companies stressed that "climate change is a global issue, which needs global participation.”

Business should be considered as part of the solution to the problem of climate change, ICC said. Among the solutions proposed by businesses are:

· Development and global deployment of innovative technologies that reduce or avoid greenhouse gas emissions

· Cost effective procedures that allow society to meet emissions reduction

· Implementation of uniform, effective and reliable emissions exchange and trading.

Staff contacts: Norine Kennedy and Adam Greene

Latest ICC documents submitted to the COP8 conference.

More on USCIB’s Environment Committee