The World Business Summit on Climate Change
May 2009
To ensure massive awareness and support from the international business community in the process of developing a new global treaty, the Copenhagen Climate Council decided to host the business equivalent to the COP15: The World Business Summit on Climate Change. It was hosted on May 24-26, 2009 -- 6 months prior to the COP15 UN Climate Summit. Over the course of 3 days, 1000 world-leading CEOs and high-level influencers gathered to develop and deliver ambitious recommendations to governments sending a united signal that global corporations were supporting a strong global deal. We had everyone from Ban Ki-Moon to Al Gore, Cate Blanchett, Indra Nooyi to Manuel Barosso, multiple European and Chinese ministers, and numerous negotiators.
The Objective of the World Business Summit on Climate Change
The Summit's stated ambition was to demonstrate clearly that climate change is not just a risk and a challenge to humanity, but also a significant opportunity to create innovative solutions and new business ventures that may result in a better quality of life for millions of people across the world.
My role as the Project Director of the Summit was to keep the bird’s-eye view of all the developments leading up to the Summit and work with the people responsible for content, program, partner-engagement, PR & Media, logistics –- everything needed to pull off a high-level Summit with multiple side events scattered around the city, different work streams, program-development, press conferences, VIP-handling, and then the development of the actual recommendations and call for action to the world leaders.
See the full program of the World Business Summit on Climate Change here.
Strong partner alliance:
The Summit was hosted by the Copenhagen Climate Council in collaboration with six of the most influential business initiatives on climate change. Working with 3C (Combat Climate Change), The Climate Group, the UN Global Compact, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and the World Economic Forum’s Climate Change Initiative, the Copenhagen Climate Council’s key industry organizations were ready to put pressure on governments to agree to an effective new global climate treaty.
Call for action - The Copenhagen Call:
At the end of the Summit, a set of recommendations and call for action - THE COPENHAGEN CALL -was delivered to the host of the UN COP15 and the Head of UNFCCC negotiations, Yvo de Boer. The Copenhagen Call was the result of months of discussion and input from all key industry associations and all members of the Copenhagen Climate Council.
See the full Copenhagen Call here.
Outcome report:
Recommendations from the Summit addressed the overall political framework and key business issues including specific opportunities for rapid implementation of low carbon solutions, strategies and partnerships necessary to achieve sustained progress towards a competitive, dynamic low carbon economy, and how the most successful companies are developing and implementing climate strategies.
You can read a condensed summary of the Summit and all of its work-streams in the Summary Report: “Shaping the sustainable economy” here.