Despite a bleak warning that the UK is unlikely to meet government emission reduction targets by 2020, the influential CBI climate change task force today insisted that the 2050 goals could be met and that from now on UK business "has to be green to grow".
Speaking at the launch of the CBI's landmark report on climate change, task force chairman and BT chief executive Ben Verwaayen said that government's goal of slashing emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 could be achieved at an affordable cost but only with "a much greater sense of urgency" from government and business.
Verwaayen said the report provided a "robust roadmap" to reduce business' emissions and enable the UK to meet the 2030 and 2050 government carbon-cutting targets.
The CBI climate change task force is composed of business leaders from all sectors of the UK economy, including bosses at BT, Barclays, Npower, BP, Tesco and British Airways.
The report sets out a three-pronged plan of attack, addressing government, business and consumers. "We need government framework, business to deliver and consumers to be empowered," said Verwaayen. "If we get this interdependency right, we will deliver."
Richard Lambert, director general of the CBI, said that the report outlined how businesses need to make carbon "part of the corporate DNA", urging them to report more clearly on their carbon emissions and incorporate it into business decisions.
In particular, the report highlights the importance of investments in energy efficiency - such as upgrading commercial property with better energy management systems, heating and cooling technologies - which it claims can deliver nearly a third of the UK businesses potential emissions reduction and deliver quantifiable cost savings for firms.
The report also urges businesses to identify the opportunities presented by climate change for a new category of low-carbon products, and claims that businesses should educate employees about climate change and give the consumer greater access to a wider range of low-carbon products, reliable information about the consequences of their choices and "incentives to make lower carbon investments".
However, the report argues that many of the low-carbon products and business models the commercial sector can deliver are dependent on a clear legislative framework that includes a price on carbon. It notes that "half of the options identified [within the report] will be economically viable in 2030 only if there is an appropriate price for carbon that rewards action to cut emissions".
Iain Conn, group managing director at BP, argued that this carbon pricing should be delivered through a cap and trade systems that should "be easier to adapt into a global system eventually".
Lambert added that a "fundamental redesign" of the tax system "was required to give businesses and consumers the incentives to do the right thing". However, he warned that in increasing green taxes government must avoid the temptation to increase overall taxes, which he claimed would be seen as "a fundamental breach of trust" by consumers and business leaders.
Tom Delay, chief executive of the Carbon Trust, welcomed the report, claiming that the CBI's commitment to "do what it takes" to tackle climate change should help make the UK a global leader in the low-carbon economy. "There is a growing acceptance that if the UK takes early action then we can become a world leader in developing new business approaches and low-carbon technologies, and in turn benefit from the export potential estimated to be worth some £240bn per year by 2050," he said.
However, the welcome from environmentalists was more muted. Friends of the Earth climate change campaigner Simon Bullock said that the report marked a fundmental shift in the business community's attitude to climate change and an end to the "knee jerk" opposition to environmental legislation. However, he argued that it also "opens up a contradiction between the CBI's new thinking and its lobbying in a number of areas, including aviation expansion, road building and raising specific environmental taxes such as fuel duty or air passenger duty ".
