Business heads to meet in Paris in May to discuss decarbonisation

The two-day Business & Climate Summit to be held in Paris next month is about collaboration between business and the governments in the area of decarbonisation of the economy, an official of the United Nations said on Thursday.

The international business community would converge on Paris next month at the Business & Climate Summit to discuss and deliberate on the action to be taken to limit global temperature rise by two degrees Celsius while securing economic growth.

Speaking to reporters from different nations via teleconference Christiana Figueres, executive secretary at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said: "There is growing interest in governments to lower carbon emissions or decarbonisation efforts."

She added that the business community, without waiting for government policy measures, are implementing energy efficiency measures.

According to her, global emissions have to peak as a prelude to a deep decarbonisation of the global economy by the second half of the century.

She said many businesses know this and are planning for that future. It is time for the rest to come on board.

Rejecting the notion that decarbonisation offers business opportunities for the developed countries not the developing nations, a panellist said the opportunity is for businesses in developed as well as developing nations.

A lot of urbanisation is taking place in developing countries, offering huge business potential, he said.

On the first day, the theme 'Vision of Low Carbon Society: Business Solutions towards a Low Carbon Society' will showcase what businesses are already planning and doing to make the low-carbon economy a reality.

On the second day deliberating on the theme 'Realising the Vision: Accelerating the Solutions Roll Out' the summit will look at what policies are required to create the prosperous, low-carbon economy of the future.

At the conclusion of the summit, a series of policy recommendations will be presented to policy makers to help initiate more action leading up to the Conference of Parties 21 to be held in Paris later this year.