View previous stories
	UN highlights role of transnational corporations in transitioning to low-carbon future by UN News & agencies   July 2010   While they are major carbon emitters, transnational corporations (TNCs) are also a source of ‘green’ investments and can play a crucial role in propelling the world towards a low-carbon future, according to a new report by the UN trade arm.   Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), said at today’s launch of the publication in Geneva that “the global policy debate on tackling climate change is no longer about whether to take action: it is now about how much action to take, which actions need to be taken, and by whom.”   TNCs, as emitters and active players in low-carbon foreign investment, are “therefore inevitably part of both the problem and the solution to climate change,” he said.   Developing nations, though typically not large emitters of greenhouse gases, can still benefit from low-carbon technologies which could help to enhance their competitiveness in the global export market and accelerate their transition to a green economy, Mr. Supachai said.   In the new report, UNCTAD proposed the creation of a Global Partnership for Low-Carbon Investment with a view to harness low-carbon foreign investment for sustainable growth and development.   Such a collaboration, it said, would entail setting up clean investment promotion strategies, the dissemination of clean technology and creating a single global standard for corporations’ disclosure of their greenhouse gas emissions, among others.   Feb 2010   A new report for the UN into the activities of the world"s 3,000 biggest companies estimates the cost of pollution and other damage to the natural environment caused by the world"s biggest companies would wipe out more than one-third of their profits if they were held financially accountable, a major unpublished study for the United Nations has found.   The report comes amid growing concern that no one is made to pay for most of the use, loss and damage of the environment, which is reaching crisis proportions in the form of pollution and the rapid loss of freshwater, fisheries and fertile soils.   Later this year, another huge UN study - dubbed the "Stern for nature" after the influential report on the economics of climate change by Sir Nicholas Stern - will attempt to put a price on such global environmental damage, and suggest ways to prevent it. The report, led by economist Pavan Sukhdev, is likely to argue for abolition of billions of dollars of subsidies to harmful industries like agriculture, energy and transport, tougher regulations and more taxes on companies that cause the damage.   Ahead of changes which would have a profound effect - not just on companies profits but also their customers and pension funds and other investors - the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment initiative and the United Nations Environment Programme jointly ordered a report into the activities of the 3,000 biggest public companies in the world.   The study, due to be published this summer, found the estimated combined damage was worth US$2.2 trillion (£1.4tn) in 2008 - a figure bigger than the national economies of all but seven countries in the world that year.   The figure equates to 6-7% of the companies combined turnover, or an average of one-third of their profits, though some businesses would be much harder hit than others.   "What we"re talking about is a completely new paradigm," said Richard Mattison, leader of the report team. "Externalities of this scale and nature pose a major risk to the global economy and markets are not fully aware of these risks, nor do they know how to deal with them."   The biggest single impact on the $2.2tn estimate, accounting for more than half of the total, was emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for climate change. Other major "costs" were local air pollution such as particulates, and the damage caused by the over-use and pollution of freshwater.   The true figure is likely to be even higher because the $2.2tn does not include damage caused by household and government consumption of goods and services, such as energy used to power appliances or waste; the "social impacts" such as the migration of people driven out of affected areas, or the long-term effects of any damage other than that from climate change. The final report will also include a higher total estimate which includes those long-term effects of problems such as toxic waste.   Trucost did not want to comment before the final report on which sectors incurred the highest "costs" of environmental damage, but they are likely to include power companies and heavy energy users like aluminium producers because of the greenhouse gases that result from burning fossil fuels. The aim of the study is to encourage and help investors lobby companies to reduce their environmental impact.
	Global Environment Index downgrades U.S. and China by The Earth Institute at Columbia University   Feb 2010   The United States, China and other major industrial economies have dropped in an international scoreboard that ranks nations on their management of pollution and natural resources, while Iceland pushed Switzerland from the number one spot.   The study, the 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI), was produced by environmental experts at Yale University and Columbia University’s Earth Institute.   The EPI, which comes out every other year, ranks 163 countries on their performance across 25 measures in 10 categories including environmental health, air quality, water resource management, biodiversity and habitat, forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and climate change.   Along with Iceland, other top performers include Switzerland, Costa Rica, Sweden and Norway. All have made substantial investments in environmental infrastructure and pollution control, and have policies designed to move toward long-term sustainability, according to the report. Occupying the bottom five positions: Togo, Angola, Mauritania, the Central African Republic and Sierra Leone –impoverished countries that lack basic environmental amenities and policy capacity.   This is the third edition of the EPI. The previous survey, in 2008, put the United States in 39th place, and China at 105th; this year the United States came in at 61st and China 121st. The United States got strong marks on some issues, such as provision of safe drinking water and forest sustainability, but fell down on greenhouse gas emissions and several aspects of local air pollution. It lags significantly behind other industrialized nations such as the United Kingdom (14th), Germany (17th), and Japan (20th).   More than 20 members of the European Union outrank the United States. Iceland derived its high scores on environmental public health, controlling greenhouse gas emissions and reforestation. As the report builds on data from before 2009, the authors point out that calculations do not reflect the recent policy activities of the Obama administration.   Alex de Sherbinin, a geographer at the Earth Institute’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network and coauthor of the report said “what this is really useful for is as a hook to get policymakers to look under the hood and see why some nations rank consistently high or consistently low, and to get them to drill down to the areas where they’re falling behind, and see the ones where they’re doing well,” he said.   De Sherbinin said the researchers have made an effort to design the index so that it measures not only nations’ consumption and pollution, but their overall health and well-being. For instance, Niger (number 158) “hardly consumes anything,” he said; on the other hand, poverty and malnutrition are so extreme, it “can hardly be considered a healthy environment.”   Like China, India is newly industrializing, and it ranked 123rd – reflecting the strain rapid economic growth imposes on the environment, say the authors. However, Brazil and Russia, also rapidly developing, rank 62nd and 69th, suggesting that the pace of development is just one of many factors.   The EPI provides a detailed analysis for each country, showing its performance on each of the 25 basic indicators, 10 core policy categories, and two overarching objectives, of environmental public health and ecosystem vitality. In addition, each nation is benchmarked against others that are similarly situated with groupings, based on geographic regions, level of development, trading blocs and demographic characteristics. These peer group rankings make it easy to highlight leaders and laggards on an issue-by-issue basis and to identify best practices, say the authors.   The data suggest that income is a major determinant of environmental success. At every level of development, however, some countries achieve results that exceed what would be anticipated, demonstrating that policy choices also affect performance. For example, Chile, where substantial investments in environmental protection have been made, ranks 16th, while its neighbor, Argentina, which has done much less to improve pollution control and resource management, lags in 70th place. Regulatory rigor, the rule of law and good governance, and the absence of corruption also show strong correlations with high EPI scores.   “At the Copenhagen Climate Conference last month, reliable environmental performance data emerged as fundamental to global-scale policy cooperation,” said project co-leader Daniel C. Esty, director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. Visit the related web page
	View more stories