Climate Change Initiative

This article is part of the Climate project of Spinwatch.

The World Economic Forum's Climate Change Initiatives, run by the World Economic Forum's Environment Team, are an offshoot of the Gleneagles Dialogue on Climate Change, formed at the 2009 World Economic Forum at the request of Gordon Brown.

The initiatives claim to 'help build multistakeholder partnerships between private, public and non-governmental actors to contribute to the environment-related Millennium Development Goals'. They appear to set up and oversee a number of 'task forces' which promote market solutions to climate change. In particular the 'Low Carbon Economic Prosperity' group describes itself as a task force of 'over 80 global companies and over 40 scientific experts and organizations' aiming to stimulate a 'clean revolution' within a 'high-growth and low carbon economy'. . They push for market based solutions to climate change which stimulate economic growth, and the importance of industry-led policies.

See Gleneagles Dialogue on Climate Change for more.

Low Carbon Economic Prosperity Task Force

According to the World Economic Forum's website in January 2010, this appears to be the only active element of the Climate Change Initiative.

Members of the task force are almost entirely corporations or their lobby groups, carbon market investors and some academics and UN agencies. Several corporations are very well represented on the group, in particular Clifford Chance and Cisco who are partner companies and have several reps each in the 'experts and organisations'.

Partner Companies

The task force is made up of more than 80 global companies, mostly in energy intensive industry:

Abercrombie & Kent Group of Companies | ABB | Accenture | Agility | Airbus SAS | Akamai Technologies | Alcatel-Lucent | Alcoa | AmecPlc. | Applied Materials | Arup | AT&T | Autodesk | Bank of America Merrill Lynch | Barclays | BASFSE | Basic Element | Bayer | BC Hydro | Booz and Company | BP | BT Group | Bunge | Cantor Fitzgerald | Carlson | China Mobile Communications Corporation | Cisco | Citi | Clifford Chance | Credit Suisse | Deutsche Bank | Deutsche Telekom | Deutsche Post | Dow Europe | Duke Energy | EMCCorporation | Eskom | Etihad Airways | Evonik | FluorCorporation | GDF Suez | General Electric Company | Good Energies | Google | HCL Technologies | Hindustan Construction Company | HSBC Holdings | IHS Inc.49. Infosys Technologies | Intel Corporation | Jet Airways | JSC RusHydro | Jubilant Organosys | McKinsey and Company | Microsoft Corporation | Mitsubishi Chemical | NASDAQ | NetJets Europe | Nike | Novozymes | PricewaterhouseCoopers | Qualcomm | Reliance Industries | Rio Tinto | Rolls Royce | Royal DSM NV | Royal Dutch Shell | SAS Institute | Siemens | Standard Chartered Bank | Swiss Reinsurance Company | ThomsonReuters | TNT | Unilever | United Overseas Bank | UPS | Vantage Point | Vattenfall | Vestas Wind Systems | WPP | Xenel | Zurich Financial

Experts and Organizations

There are 40 'experts and organizations', largely representing corporations, investment firms and emissions trading lobbies (including the other major groups with very similar corporate membership), with some academics. There is only one representative from an environmental NGO.

• Marco Albani, Project Catalyst, McKinsey and Company, Canada
• Atul Arya, Chief Advisor, Climate and Energy Policy, BP, United Kingdom
• Penny Baalman, Managing Director, GHG Offset Services, Australia
• Tom Baumann,CEO, Climate Check, Canada
• Morgan Bazilian, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, Austria
• Fatih Birol, Chief Economist, Director of International Energy Agency
• Lawrence Bloom, Deputy Chairman, Noble Cities, United Kingdom
• Cath Bremner, Head of Corporate Development, Carbon Trust, United Kingdom
• James Cameron, Vice-Chairman, Climate Change Capital, United Kingdom
• Juan Carlos Castilla-Rubio, Director, IBSG Climate Change Practice, Cisco, Brazil
• Margaret Catley-Carlson, Patron, Global Water Partnership, Sweden
• Leslie Cordes, Director, Partnerships -Energy and Climate, United Nations Foundation, USA
• Jan Corfee-Morlot, Environment Directorate, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, France
• Peter L. Corsell, Chief Executive Officer, GridPoint, USA
• Aron Cramer, President and Chief Executive Officer,Business for Social Responsibility,USA
• Simon Dent, Head of European Gas and Power Trading and Marketing, BNP Paribas, United Kingdom
• Henry Derwent, President and Chief Executive Officer, International Emissions Trading Association Switzerland
• Reid Detchon, Executive Director, Energy and Climate, United Nations Foundation, USA
• Gerry Duffy, Senior Policy Adviser on Finance, Climate Change and Middle Income Countries,Department for International Development, United Kingdom
• Bruce Duguid, Head of Investor Engagement, The Carbon Trust, United Kingdom
• Leslie Durschinger, Managing Director, Terra Global Capital, USA
• Christine Egan, Executive Director, CLASP
• Christopher Egerton-Warburton, Lion’s Head Global Partners, United Kingdom
• Marcelo Furtado, Executive Director, Greenpeace, Brazil
• Meg Gottstein, Principal, The Regulatory Assistance Project
• Chris Greenwood, Director of Research, New Energy Finance, United Kingdom
• Angel Gurría, Secretary-General, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, France
• Lois Guthrie, Technical Director, Carbon Disclosure Project, on behalf of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board, United Kingdom
• Kirsty Hamilton, Associate Fellow, Energy, Environment and Development Programme,Chatham House, United Kingdom
• Harish Hande, Managing Director, SELCO Solar Light, India
• Anthony Hobley, Head of the Global Climate Change and Carbon Finance, Norton Rose, United Kingdom
• William W. Hogan, Raymond Plank Professor of Global Energy Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, USA
• Steve Howard, Chief Executive Officer, The Climate Group, United Kingdom
• Yoshihito Iwama, Executive Director. Nippon Keidanren
• Giedre Kaminskaite-Salters, Senior Private Sector Development Adviser, Department for International Development, United Kingdom
• Lila Karbassi, Office and Financial Manager, The United Nations Global Compact, USA
• Abyd Karmali, President, Carbon Markets and Investors Association, United Kingdom
• Katia Karousakis, OECD Environment Directorate, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, France
• Anne Kelly, Director of Governance Programs, Ceres, USA
• Uday Khemka, Vice Chairman, Sun Group, United Kingdom
• Melinda Kimble, Senior Vice President, United Nations Foundation, USA
• David King, Director, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
• Jules Kortenhorst, Chief Executive Officer,European Climate Foundation, Netherlands
• Jeremy Krantz, GIC Investments, Singapore
• Michael Kuhndt, Head, UNEP/Wuppertal Institute Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production, Germany
• Rob Lake, Head of Sustainability, APG Asset Management, on behalf of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) and the P8 Group of Pension Funds, United Kingdom
• Kevin S. Leahy, Managing Director, Climate Policy, Duke Energy Corporation, USA
• Tristan Lecomte, Founder and CEO, Pur Project, France
• Anthony Leiserowitz, Research Scientist and Director, Yale Project on Climate Change, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, USA
• Michael Liebreich, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, New Energy Finance, United Kingdom
• David Lunsford, Policy Leader, Emissions Trading, International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), Switzerland
• Nick Mabey, Chief Executive, E3G, Third Generation Environmentalism, United Kingdom
• David MacKay, Professor of Natural Philosophy, Department of Physics, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
• William McDonough, Chairman, William McDonough and Partners Architecture and Community Design/MDBC, USA
• Sonia Medina, Associate Director and Head of Origination, Ecosecurities, USA
• Gideon Middleton, Senior LecturerMBA (Strategic Carbon Management) Course Director,University of East Anglia, United Kingdom
• Luke Minford, Rouse and Co International, People’s Republic of China
• Shilpa Patel, International Finance Corporation, USA
• Lindene Patton, Chief Climate Officer, Zurich Financial Services, USA
• Stuart Popham, Senior Partner, Clifford Chance, United Kingdom
• Brooks Preston, Investor, Wolfensohn & Company LLC, USA
• Glenn Prickett, Senior Fellow, United Nations Foundation, USA
• Stefan Reichenbach, Global Head of Environmental Markets, Thomson Reuters, Canada
• Dan Reicher, Director, Climate Change and Energy Initiatives, Google, USA
• Laurence Rose, COO, Cantor CO2e, USA
• Armen Sarkissian, President and Founder, Eurasia House International, United Kingdom
• Orville H.Schell, Director, Center on US-China Relations, Asia Society, USA
• Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany
• Cheng Siwei, Dean, Management University, Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences, People's Republic of China
• David Skole, Professor and Director, Global Observatory for Ecosystem Services, Michigan State University, USA
• Ole Beier Sørensen, Chief of Research, ATPPension Fund, Denmark
• Justine Spelman, Program Manager, Cisco, USA
• Daniel Sperling, Director, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis, USA
• Achim Steiner, Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme,Kenya
• Nicholas Stern, IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, India Observatory, London School of Economics, United Kingdom
• Björn Stigson, President, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Switzerland
• Rory Sullivan, Head of Responsible Investment, Insight Investment, United Kingdom
• Camilla Taylor, Investment Advisor to Trading Emissions PLC, EEA Fund Management, UK
• John Tobin, Head of Public Policy-Sustainability Affairs, Credit Suisse, Switzerland
• Nigel Topping, Chief Development Officer, Carbon Disclosure Project, United Kingdom
• Virgilio Viana, Director, Sustainable Amazon Foundation, IIED Fellow, Brazil
• David G. Victor, Professor of Law and Director, Program on Energy and Sustainable Development, Stanford University, USA
• Fredrik Voss, VP Carbon Markets, NASDAQ OMX, Sweden
• Mike Wallace, Director Sustainability Reporting Framework, Global Reporting Initiative, The Netherlands
• Timothy E. Wirth,President, United Nations Foundation, USA
• Diane Wittenberg,Executive Director, The Climate Registry, USA
• Michael Gell, Director, Xanfeon, United Kingdom
• Oliver Yates, Head of Climate Change, Macquarie, Australia
• Peter Zaman, Partner, Clifford Chance, United Kingdom
• Dimitri Zenghelis,Climate Change Economist, Cisco, Senior Visiting Fellow, London School of Economics, United Kingdom