CGI Annual Meeting: When Confronting Climate Change is Good Economics

Addressing climate change comes down to simply implementing good business sense and long-term thinking about how we invest, build and support business growth around the globe. The Confronting Climate Change is Good Economics plenary session, presented at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting this week, drew consensus among notable panelists. They spoke to the changing values of companies and cities as it relates to planning effectively to leverage solutions that bridge both capital and climate change alleviation.

Highly appropriate after coming off a high from the People’s Climate March on Sunday, which drew an estimated 400,000 people from all over the world, this panel discussion accurately assessed the need for government, business and citizens to address greenhouse gas emissions and quality of life by aligning our actions to our most pressing issues.

Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Prime Minister of Denmark, had this to say:

“There are two facets of increasing environmental solutions. First, we must set the target and incorporate stakeholders. Second, we need to create a long-term, stable framework.”

That framework, according to Prime Minister Thorning-Schmidt, incorporates the need for breaking down systematic solutions that will allow cities and business leaders to adopt green technologies, produce prosperity through job creation and find ways to use our energy more efficiently.

Echoing her statements, panelist Henry, M. Paulson Jr., chairman of think-and-do tank the Paulson Institute, spoke up for the perils of “short-termism” behaviors.

“Businesses need to incorporate the environmental analysis into their decision making. If they don’t make the investment properly, there will be a huge cost that they and their shareholders will pay.”

Paulson also rebutted the notion that upfront investment in the long-term will be strenuous to investors and government policy changes. He cited the same apprehension to the Clean Air Act when it was first introduced in 1963. “The only way to get there [long-term economic prosperity] is by putting a price on carbon.”

Stay tuned for more coverage of the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting this week on Triple Pundit! 

Image Source: Clinton Global Initiative/Flickr

Sherrell Dorsey is a writer, social entrepreneur and advocate for environmental, social and economic equity in underserved communities. When she's not obsessively learning how to decrease her carbon footprint, Sherrell contributes frequently on green design, sustainable architecture and environmental policy at Inhabitat.com. A featured safe cosmetics expert on Fox News, her work has also covered the pages of Black Enterprise and Organic Spa Magazine. Follow Sherrell on twitter @sherrell_dorsey.