Copenhagen, 7 December 2009 

As international climate change negotiations begin in Copenhagen, the International Emissions Trading Association set out its priorities for the negotiations and the outcomes that businesses supportive of market-oriented solutions would want to see.  A note (attached), distributed widely in Copenhagen, stresses the critical role of private finance in tackling the climate challenge and the unavoidable need for massive amounts of private as well as public finance if emission reduction and low carbon investment targets are to be met. 

That finance needs to be incentivized efficiently. The Clean Development Mechanism has proved very effective at motivating the private sector to fund emission reduction activities and— with administrative and substantive reforms— could do much more. But it is not capable of bearing the weight of the reductions needed. New flexible mechanisms and other approaches are required to drive private sector finance to low-carbon solutions. 

“Two weeks of momentous climate negotiations are beginning, with literally hundreds of issues still competing for negotiators’ and Ministers’ attention,” said Henry Derwent, President and CEO of IETA. “It would be all too easy to miss the points that have to be settled for private finance to play the part it must. Business needs clarity, certainty, and the basis for a global price of carbon. The resources are there if the policy is clear.  Market mechanisms have been proved to work.  Reform the CDM; set clear targets, open the door to new market mechanisms, and above all show that business should have confidence in a global low-carbon economy.”

Ends -- 

Attachments:

ieta2

172 Kb