Business leaders and climate leadership....

Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott, in one of his speeches, said "For us, there is virtually no distinction between being a responsible citizen and a successful business.....they are one and the same for Wal-Mart today." It is the CEOs who set the vision for environmental strategies and take small businesses forward without really compromising on environmental values and this global community cannot afford to lose momentum over the environmental movement. Business leaders are seen making serious attempts to attenuate the environmental impacts of their businesses and reduce the carbon footprints of their activities. Organizations that produce eco-friendly products need not lose their edge over their competitors who are yet to evolve strategies to improve their environmental efficiencies. Environmental performance and sustainability come with a certain cost, a cost, which is recovered when consumers opt for eco-friendly products. Business leaders are bound to emerge as climate leaders as they innovate to reduce any environmental impact even as they comply and conform their businesses to the tenets of ecological science. Climate leaders need to sensitize their governments about enhancing their commitments on emissions reduction and help forge public-private partnerships.

Economy of esteem and climate change...

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking, and climate change requires sustained innovation. We have reached a situation where developing countries and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) need an overarching climate treaty which recognizes their right to sustainable development, access to funds for mitigation and adaptation activities. In our failure to achieve a post-Kyoto agreement we could end up forcing an international climate regime to fall victim to political complacency. This lack of political commitment to fight global warming could render the future of international climate regime very bleak.

The failure of national leaders to execute a post-Kyoto climate agreement would reflect the collective insensitivity of developed nations to the plight of LDCs that need food and water security, and work towards alleviation of poverty in these nations. There are nations whose citizens are losing their habitats to climate change and the absence of law to protect these 'climate refugees' makes them much more vulnerable to the debilitating effects of climate change. The lack of any initiative to protect these citizens is evident from the fact that the United Nations is yet to define the term ‘climate refugee' and list out guidelines to protect the right of these refugees to seek environmental asylum in other countries.


There is more to a climate treaty than mere assent to ‘legally binding commitments on emission reductions'. Global warming through sensible and serious participation of nations and its leaders and by offering incentives for effective climate leadership. They call it the ‘economy of esteem for climate change’. The link below gives a political analysis on the 'how and why' of a post-2012 climate change architecture.  

State of international climate treaty post-Kyoto

Seeing REDD in a post-Kyoto framework..

Illegal logging, an obstacle in the race to reduce deforestation

Deforestation of tropical forests releases more carbon than forests outside the tropics. According to IPCC, the carbon mitigating benefits of reducing deforestation are far greater than the benefits of afforestation. Tropical forests account for almost half of the world’s forest area, holding as much carbon in their vegetation and soils as temperate-zone and boreal forests. Trees in tropical forests hold about 50% more carbon per hectare than trees outside the tropics.

Forest management includes maintenance of forest carbon stocks, sustainable harvesting of forest products and equitable distribution of forest wealth among the indigenous people. Climate change regime could increase incursions into the territories of indigenous people without any scope for their participation in forestry activities and harvesting of forestry products. The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues made recommendations required that new proposals for avoided deforestation or reduced emissions from deforestation address the need for global and national policy reforms guided by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Reducing deforestation can mitigate the adverse effects of climate change substantially and for this reason, land, land-use changes and forestry or LULUCF that comprises all land-use activities needs to given utmost importance under a post-2012 climate agreement. Article 3 of the Kyoto Protocol has created a framework for future negotiations although it had left unresolved, critical issues relating to LULUCF and its emissions accounting.

A post-Kyoto climate agreement must address 'avoided deforestation' to achieve the goals set to reduce global warming. Climate change cannot be tackled without addressing issues relevant to avoided deforestation and including them in international climate agreements, a policy known as the Reduced Emissions and Forest Degradation or REDD. REDD can tackle climate change, alleviate poverty and conserve biodiversity. Among many concepts evolved to reduce emissions from deforestation, 'compensated reduction' is recommended to reduce substantial emissions from deforestation facilitating developing country participation in the Kyoto Protocol framework. To implement the compensated reduction plan, governments need to adopt domestic policies that deter private landowners from deforesting their lands.


India, believed that the concept of compensated reduction favored nations with high deforestation rates and therefore proposed the concept of ‘compensated conservation’ that rewards countries for maintaining and increasing their forests as a result of conservation. It also believed that a voluntary fund or enabling fund is required to support capacity building and REDD activities.

The Amazon fund established by Brazilian government supports efforts to reduce deforestation rates by 70% by 2018 through enforcing logging restrictions and land-title reform. Many economists believe that international forest preservation projects be part of global efforts to fight climate change and that industrialized nations need to contribute to this Fund to protect the region from greenhouse gas emissions.

Greenest of all....

The greenest city in the United States of America turned out to be a real surprise. It is a city that beckons. Read on....

Of all the cities in the world, it had to be......,,take a guess!