Kerry calls on businesses to lead fight against climate change
U.S. Secretary of State urged businesses to set ambitious emissions reduction targets at Paris Climate Week on Thursday
John Kerry, the U.S. Secretary of State, called on businesses to lead the fight against climate change and set ambitious emissions reduction targets at Paris Climate Week on Thursday.
Kerry addressed the Business & Climate Summit in the French capital via video link to and said: "What we really need is for the private sector to encourage governments across the world to set ambitious emissions targets and to set targets of their own. And I do mean ambitious - like the companies that have set targets of using 100 per cent renewable energy by 2020."
About 2,000 business leaders attended the two-day summit at the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the build up to the crucial Paris COP21 UN climate change conference in December.
The chief executive of Unilever, Paul Polman, said: "To go further, we need a strong international climate agreement that sends a clear and credible signal to businesses that low-carbon policies will endure.”
Elder Saetre, chief executive of Statoil, also addressed the summit and said introducing an effective carbon pricing system would be the most important policy for limiting global warming.