In the run-up to the United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen, over 850 businesses convened by the ֱ̽ of Cambridge have urged world leaders to work towards a robust and equitable global deal on climate change.

ֱ̽Copenhagen Communiqué on Climate Change – an initiative of ֱ̽Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders’ Group on Climate Change, which is run by the ֱ̽ of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership (CPSL) - calls for a deal that responds credibly to the scale and urgency of predicted climate change.

ֱ̽Communiqué has been signed by more than 850 companies in over 50 countries, including every member of the G20.

ֱ̽Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alison Richard, has written to heads of government, finance ministers and the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, enclosing a copy of the Copenhagen Communiqué on Climate Change.

In her letter to world leaders Professor Richard says: “By endorsing the Communiqué, the signatories have demonstrated that agreement can be reached on the basic shape of an ambitious, robust and equitable global deal on climate change across a wide variety of companies. In doing so, they indicate that it should be possible for the world’s governments now to do the same.”

ֱ̽Communiqué warns of the damage that will be done to business if a credible deal is not reached in Copenhagen. In the document, the companies call for emission reduction targets to be guided by science, and they offer support for the emerging consensus to limit global average temperature rise to less than 2oC compared to pre-industrial levels. In turn, they recognise that this will require global emissions topeak and begin to decline rapidly within the next decade and reduce by 50-85% by 2050.

ֱ̽Vice-Chancellor said: “Cambridge is committed to the highest quality research and teaching on environmental issues, and to engagement with thepublic, with business, and with policy-makers to inform the decisions that society makes.”

Business leaders from the Corporate Leaders’ Group will be handing a copy of ֱ̽Copenhagen Communiqué to the Prime Minister Gordon Brown at a reception at Downing Street tonight.

Several members of the ֱ̽ of Cambridge are attending the summit in Copenhagen, which runs from 7-18 December.

CPSL is hosting an event on the leadership challenges facing businesses and civil society post-Copenhagen, and chairing a debate about public policy priorities needed to deliver a low carbon economy.

Students Bethanie Wattleworth and Joan Groizard Payeras, who co-chair Cambridge ֱ̽ Students Union ethical affairs, will also be at the summit. Both third year engineering students at Homerton College, the pair are travelling from Cambridge to Copenhagen by coach – a 22-hour journey – to keep their carbon emissions down.

“Being in Copenhagen is going to be really exciting. We’re keen to learn more about how these international negotiations work. But the event is for civil society as well as politicians, so we want to compare what we’re doing in Cambridge with what goes on in the wider world,” Beth says.

Beth and Joan will be tweeting and facebooking from Copenhagen and holding a post-Copenhagen event during Cambridge Green Week, 8-12 February 2009.

Annela Anger-Kraavi, a research assistant at the Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research (4CMR) in the Department of Land Economy is part of the official International Maritime Organization (IMO) delegation.

According to Annela: “Greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping and aviation are not covered by any international climate treaty, so regulating theseemissions will be on the agenda at Copenhagen. I am working on an IMO project on market-based instruments for international shipping and will present my results at the Copenhagen.”

A copy of the Communiqué, together with a list of signatories, is available at .

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