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6 Executive summarySummary report– both internally and externally. By mobilizing employeesin this regard, business leaders can help facilitatethe public support political leaders need to make bolddecisions and reach ambitious agreement.Next steps towards December 2009Business leaders at the Summit demonstrated a clearcommitment to the development of an ambitious futurepolicy framework for climate change and stand ready towork with policymakers to help reflect their ideas andconcerns in the international climate change treaty,which they hope will be agreed at Copenhagen. TheSummit highlighted two fundamental means to successin December 2009:“We all need to be active. It doesn’tend here. There are 208 days to go.Everybody that’s here needs to think,If I’m not satisfied with what comesout of Copenhagen, did my organization,my company, did I do everythingI could to get the best deal. Successwill have many parents.”Steve Howard, Chief Executive Officer,The Climate Group1. Business involvement, partnerships, and knowledge-sharing.Business has a critical role to play infinancing, developing, and deploying low-carbon solutions.Business is expected to provide the bulk of theinvestment required in the transition to a low-carboneconomy, so it is important to understand that investors– whether pension funds, companies, or venturecapitalists – need to make returns on their investments.Business also has a key role to play in low-carbon technologyinnovation and deployment, but there is also aneed for new alliances, and in some cases partnershipswith government. Technology innovation will onlyoccur if government goals and policies are clear andlongterm.Next steps• Ensure a clearer understanding between governmentofficials of how incentives or regulations can makelow-carbon investments commercially viable.• Improve the quality of information, transparency,and measurability for investors allocating funds forlow-carbon technologies.• Establish closer collaboration and consultation betweengovernments and business.2. Politicians need to get the mechanisms right.Mechanisms and regulations designed by governments,whether carbon markets, public-private partnerships,standards, or taxes, need to be designedto promote business engagement on climate change.Carbon markets should continue to play a centralrole in climate policy, but must be scaled up to aglobal level and complemented by other policies. It isvital that policies put a clear and long-term price oncarbon emissions that can steer the choices of consumers,businesses, and governments, over comingyears and decades. Shifting major infrastructure investmentdown a low-carbon path will only happenif the regulatory landscape is clear to investors.Next steps• Ensure involvement of businesses and organizationswhen designing mechanisms for a newglobal framework.• Create partnerships between business, science,and governments, on specific mechanisms crucialto a new global framework.Focus areas for businessThe Summit debates offered a variety of concreterecommendations from business leaders to theirpeers and from other stakeholders to business onhow corporate leaders can operate successfully inthe world of economic recession and climate change,and support the transition to a low-carbon economy.• Ensure the company is geared toward a fulltransition to a low-carbon future when agreementis reached on a new global framework on climatechange, by incorporating climate and corporatebusiness strategies.• Implement optimal energy efficiency systems,cleanest possible energy sources, and low-carbontechnologies, both in scale and scope.• Turn rhetoric into hard action and demonstrateto share and stakeholders that your business isprepared to move into the low-carbon economy.• Ensure a competitive advantage and attract youngtalent, by creating a green profile and engagingemployees in both internal and external carbonemissions reduction that will help stimulate abottom-up approach.• Involve the company in partnerships betweengovernments and sectors. These partnerships arecrucial to ensure the right investments and foundationsfor long-term, low-carbon, prosperity.