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James Cameron Speaks at UN General Assembly - Urges UN to Encourage Entrepreneurship to Help Combat Climate Change
(LONDON - 9th June 2008) The UN General Assembly was urged today to encourage entrepreneurial risk- taking in the fight against climate change and to recognise that private capital can be a major force in helping remake the global economy in a sustainable form.
Climate Change Capital's vice-chairman James Cameron told the UN member states: "The scale of the problem and the time constraints require huge private capital investments today which can help deliver the public good associated with reducing emissions - creating wealth worth having."
He said that private capital flows faster than public money and that today's carbon market delivers more money faster and more directly at the problem without drawing upon public money.
Cameron, speaking at the General Assembly's meeting on global private investments and climate change, spoke about the role of the Carbon Disclosure Project, of which he is chairman, where shareholders representing $57 trillion have encouraged the companies in which they have invested to count and reassess their carbon footprint. This could have a huge impact, he said.
Cameron said that the world can and must reach agreement on a new treaty binding in international law to replace the Kyoto protocol. He added that higher levels of cooperation were needed than perhaps ever before to deal with climate change which, if unresolved, posed an existential threat. This, he told the UN, was what government was for, and because it was a global problem, what international public policy making was for.
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Enquiries:
Climate Change Capital
Communications Team +44 (0)20 7939 5319 or media@c-c-capital.com
Notes to Editors
James Cameron
James Cameron is Vice Chairman of CCC and is responsible for strategic and sector development, is Chairman of the Advisory Board and represents the firm at the highest levels of business and government. James is one of the world's pre-eminent experts in developing market based policy responses to climate change. Prior to CCC he was Counsel to Baker & McKenzie and was the founder and the head of their Climate Change Practice.
James has spent much of his legal career working on climate change matters, including negotiating the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol as an adviser to the Alliance of Small Island States. He has held academic positions at Cambridge, London, Bruges and Sydney and is currently affiliated with the Yale Centre for Environmental Law and Policy. As a barrister he appeared in several of the leading cases in environmental law. He is the Chairman of the Carbon Disclosure Project and a treasurer of REEEP and a trustee of The Climate Group. He is a member of the board of GE Ecomagination.
Carbon Disclosure Project
The Carbon Disclosure Project ("CDP") http://www.cdproject.net/
is
an independent not-for-profit organisation aiming to create a
lasting relationship between shareholders and corporations
regarding the implications for shareholder value and commercial
operations presented by climate change. Its goal is to facilitate a
dialogue, supported by quality information, from which a rational
response to climate change will emerge.
CDP provides a coordinating secretariat for institutional investors with combined assets of over $57 trillion under management. On their behalf it seeks information on the business risks and opportunities presented by climate change and greenhouse gas emissions data from the world's largest companies: 3,000 in 2008. Over 8 years CDP has become the gold standard for carbon disclosure methodology and process. The CDP website is the largest repository of corporate greenhouse gas emissions data in the world.
CDP leverages its data and process by making its information requests and responses from corporations publicly available, helping catalyse the activities of policymakers, consultants, accountants and marketers.
