World Biz Leaders to Call for 'Massive' Climate Investment

Next week, executives from some of the world’s largest corporations plan to get behind a call for an international treaty that would include “strong incentives for massive investment in new technologies and new climate solutions.” The Copenhagen Climate Council has dubbed this planned set of recommendations for policy, business strategies, and models for public-private partnerships the “Copenhagen Call,” and will deliver it at the end of the World Business Summit on Climate Change taking place May 24-26.
Many of the panels on the summit’s agenda are supposed to focus on innovation: “Shaping the New Green Economy,” “Innovative Business Perspectives on Climate Change,” and “Rapid Transformation to a Low-Carbon Economy” are just a few of the discussion topics. But innovative startups generally won’t be leading the talks. A large number of the speakers will be coming from investment or environmental groups, plus megacorps like BP, PepsiCo, Unilever and Duke Energy. However, Alan Salzman, the CEO of VantagePoint Venture Partners, a Silicon Valley firm that has backed cleantech startups Better Place, Tesla Motors and BrightSource Energy, will lead a working group on “radical mobilization of as yet untapped sources of funding.”

Salon