The 2008 G-8 Summit: Good news for green business.
World leaders at the G-8 Summit announced today that they will work together to halve world greenhouses gas emissions by 2050. The eight leading industrial nations represented at the summit - the U.S., Russia, Germany, Japan, France, Britain, Canada, and Italy - made it clear they are committed to a joint battle against global warming, and urged other major economies to contribute to the fight.
What does this announcement mean for green business?
It means that not only are you in high demand, but you are essential to the continued progress and sustainable development of the world from this point forward. In order to achieve the reduction goal, the G-8 understands that contributions must be made by every country and every economy. The time to act is now.
By setting goals for your own business, you can contribute to the global fight while also taking advantage of an opportunity for unprecidented business growth. Aligning the development of your company with sustainable practices has proven profitable for many of the world’s most successful companies (HP, Heinz, and British Telecom to name a few), and that means it can work for you as well — no matter how big or small your business may be.
Tags: g-8 summit, green business, greenhouse gasses, reducing emissions
July 8th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
This is a wonderful development. I hope against hope it ends up true. If it does, though, everyone should know the results are going to be at least 50 years into the future of the date for the affect (2050). In other words, the atmosphere is like a freight train. One cannot change it (stop it) over ten, twenty even thirty years. It is unstoppable, enormous beyond human imagination, and in order to affect change at the global (not local) level takes about 50 years. What we are experiencing todday is the result, largely, of greenhouse gases created 50 years ago. They’re finally returning in a sense to bite us in the ass. Nothing on a planet-scale, especially something quasi-biological (our ecosystem — Gaia) changes quickly and completely.
We are the only species who can be our planets stewards, while simultaneously we are the main perpetrators of our own civilization’s demise. We have been given big brains that work well — they’re said to be the most complicated objects we know of anywhere (thus far) in the universe — we can take earth bacteria needing no air or atmosphere and, intentionally, infect the moon with it. We’re the only species that can get off the planet. One of our responsibilities, therefore, is to spread DNA-based (Earth) life wherever we go. Mars will be a fantastic project.
Picture this, we perturb the orbit of a giant, ice-comet (most are made of water ice) so that it smacks into mars, depositing seas of water and minerals. Then we plant plants, try to get the atmosphere of Mars more substantial as plants did with our own. In 100,000 years, Mars is totally terraformed. A beautiful other earth in a way.
But what I want to remind everyone is that it takes a long time, something on the order of 50 years, for any change in “local” air molecules to rise to heights where they have some affect on us down here.
July 8th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Beautiful reply!
I believe your highly-accurate assessment is MORE incentive to act NOW instead of waiting any longer. With residual momentum in mind, we must realize that only by taking action in the present can we begin to slow the process.