Chicago Climate Exchange type body mooted for India

Palampur(Himachal Pradesh), June 10 (UNI) The need to have a climate exchange in India on the pattern of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) and create greater awareness among Indian companies about CDM and trading in carbon credits was highlighted at the three-day international Convention on Corporate Response to Climate Change that concluded here today.

A number of experts, environmentalists and representatives of corporates felt that concerted efforts should be launched to make the industry under stand the gains it could make from adopting clean technologies.

According to Dr Michael Walsh, executive vice president of CCX, Mr Paul Simpson of UK NGO 'Carbon Disclosure Project, Ms Neeta Hooda of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, once the companies realised the benefits accruing from cutting carbon emissions, which has a market of billions of dollars, they would readily aspend heavily on CDM.

Institutions like the Chicago Climate Exchange facilitate trading in Certified Emission Reduction (CERs) of carbon, a system evolved under the Kyoto Protocol in which industrialised countries mandated to cut emissions of greenhouse gases could buy carbon credits from developing countries who earn these credits by cutting on carbon emissions through adaptation of Clean Development Mechanism(CDM).

Mr Pradeeep Chaturvedi and Mr Madhav Mehra of the World Council for Corporate Governanace said the idea of having an Indian version of the CCX was discussed during the convention and it evoked a very positive response.

Such an exchange would go a long way in making CER trading facilities available to small Indian entrepreneurs and farmers.

Already farmers in Kerala are trading in carbon emission through CCX with the help pf an NGO, Mr Walsh said.

While noting that though India's per capita emission of greenhouse gases was much below that of the US and China, experts felt that it should have no cause of remaining content, because with the projected higher growth that would be needing more power, much of which was to come from coal based thermal plants, the country might be catching up fast with China in carbon emissions.

They called for developing technology to tap the abundant energy of the Sun and the wind which were totally clean. Some of them even advocated greater use of nuclear energy to meet the demand for power, saying that the potential for tapping renewable energy at present was not sufficient enough to power India's growth.

Some others, like journalist Nitin Sethi expressed concern that companies were not coming out with disclosure of their carbon emissions, and that the Government was relaxing its environmental impact laws in favour of the industry.

Former Prime Minister of Sweden and Chairman of the World Council for Corprate Governance Ola Ullsetn had earlier in his speech as the chief guest called for India and other nations to gear up a war to meet the challenges of the climate change whose impact was already visible.

He also called upon the industry to seize the opportunity and respond accordingly as the climate change and its consequences would not leave it untouched.

''Whether or not companies are going to survive hinges on; how aware they are of what is going on; how updated they are on how climate change effects their special sector of industry; how good they are in foreseeing the risks; and how successful they are in seizing the opportunities.,'' he said.

''Doing the right on the environment things counts a lot these days both for producers, whole sellers and retailers. It is about image. A good image is an asset, a bad image is bad for business,'' said Mr Ullsten.

Recently the Council has promoted the idea that the concept of corporate social responsibility should go beyond internal social matters and local community relations. Corporations must be able to relate to issues like the global environment and world poverty, he added.

The Convention had been jointly organised by the Institute of Directors, World Council for Corporate Governance and the World Environment Foundation.

UNI