Survey predicts private sector to play important role in solving climate change

Companies and business associations will be the most effective organizations in developing and implementing solutions to climate change according to a recent survey.

And such solutions are urgently needed: A majority of experts doubt that the current progress on climate change will be fast enough to avert major irreversible damage and one-third believe it is already too late. The survey conducted by GlobeScan with the support of the COM+ Alliance explored sustainability experts' views on approaches to climate change for the post-2012 period after the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol.

Almost half of the experts (46%) believe that the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) will play a major role in defining or implementing climate change solutions over the next five years - second only to the European Union (79%).

The Council is also named as one of 13 organizations/entities currently most influential in defining or implementing climate change solutions and - alongside the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the preferred source of information on this topic. What will climate change solutions look like? Experts predict that economic instruments new science and technology and regulatory approaches will be the most effective approaches in the post-Kyoto world.

More see the development of renewable energy sources as an effective solution to climate change than those who think that bio-fuels clean coal combustion or carbon capture and sequestration are the best solutions. Among financial mechanisms explored carbon taxes and emissions trading are seen as potentially the most effective instruments.

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