BBVA contributes to the success of the Bali Conference on Climate Change

BBVA is part of the group of signatories of the Bali Communiqué, addressed to the word leaders present in the Conference held in Bali, on December 3-14, and which purpose is to call for a comprehensive, legally binding United Nations framework to tackle climate change.

 
This unprecedented initiative, led by The Prince of Wales’s UK and EU Corporate Leaders Groups on Climate Change and the University of Cambridge Programme for Industry, and joined by some of the biggest companies and brands from around the world, was given to all countries’ representatives that attended the Bali Conference, a real success that has meant an enormous step ahead in global-warming fight history.

The Bali Communiqué calls for:
- a comprehensive, legally binding United Nations framework to tackle climate change
- emission reduction targets to be guided primarily by science
- those countries that have already industrialised to make the greatest effort
- world leaders to seize the window of opportunity and agree a work plan of negotiations to ensure an agreement can come into force post 2012 (when the existing Kyoto Protocol expires)
Also this group of business leaders stresses the essential issues, social, environmental and economic, that could be affected if climate change is not immediately tackled.

According to the Communiqué, costs of no acting will soon turn out into the next effects:
• The economic and geopolitical costs of unabated climate change could be very severe and globally disruptive. All countries and economies will be affected, but it will be the poorest countries that will suffer earliest and the most
• The costs of action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change are manageable, especially if guided by a common international vision
• Each year we delay action to control global emissions increases the risk of unavoidable consequences that will likely necessitate even steeper reductions in the future, causing potentially greater economic, environmental and social disruption.
• The shift to a low-carbon economy will create significant business opportunities. New markets for low carbon technologies and products, worth billions of dollars, will be created if the world acts on the scale required

In summary, signatories and editors of the Bali Communiqué, BBVA amongst them, argue that tackling climate change is a pro-growth strategy; not doing it, will weaken and undermine world’s economic growth.

For further information visit The Bali Communiqué.