Business must take the lead on carbon management
Léo Apotheker is CEO of SAP. The views expressed are his own.
Most people who followed the Copenhagen climate talks in December will have been disappointed.
While the agreement brokered by the group of countries that included the United States, Brazil, China, India and South Africa and ratified by most of the attending countries is being touted as a success of sorts, it fell far short of the expectations that had built up, and achieved very little in concrete terms.
Now with the World Economic Forum approaching, the issue of climate change and sustainability will once again dominate discussions among the business and political leaders who attend the annual gathering in Davos.
Ever since the 1968 publication in Science of Garrett Hardin’s article “The Tragedy of the Commons,” it has been regarded as virtually an article of faith that only strong national and international regulators can be trusted with the proper management of public resources.
A clear regulatory framework is necessary for businesses to act in competitive environments and maybe at least some pieces of such a framework will be provided in the future. But it was not provided at Copenhagen.
The United State’s forward thinking progressive types want to lead the World in green sustainable energy. This drive was put in park by the last 5 out 7 administrations. It’s no wonder why the Dems finally got mad and elected Barack Obama, and why the Rupuglican’ts are reeling so spastic-ally. But leading the World in Green technology in the near future is going to be other countries like Germany, China. So we had better get cracking with government incentives to build up our
manufacturing base with solar cell factories, hydrogen cell factories, wind farm factories, Algea farms, Alpaca farms, Organic farms, etc etc. First Obama has to be re-elected in 2012 or it’s going to be 6 out 9 “backward not-green” administrations that our beautiful country has had to slog through year after year instead of 5 out of 9. I hope the rest of the World will support Democrats in 2012, for the Planet’s sake I pray.