Citola Blog
Climate Conference: The Real Story
The Citola management team has been truly excited by the enthusiasm demonstrated in the London financial community for our offering. Citola CEO Angus MacNee and the team have been at meetings with large financial institutions and international banks, and the level of interest demonstrated has been extremely high.
One particularly engaging – and non-confidential – get-together involved Advance, a network of Australian professionals dedicated to the cause of promoting Australia and Australian business around the world.
A seminar entitled “International Climate Negotiations After COP15 “ featured presentations from a couple of panellists, Anthony Hobley, a partner in the international law firm, Norton Rose, and Geoff Sinclair, head of carbon sales and trading at Standard Bank. The discussion was very impressively moderated by James Cameron – not the movie director, but the vice chairman of Climate Change Capital. Cameron spoke himself and then focused the discussion on what the outcome (or lack of it) from last December’s climate-change conference in Copenhagen might mean for Australia and the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).
It was fascinating to get a fly-on-the-wall view of events at the conference. Cameron intimated that a prime cause of the failure to reach any meaningful agreement was the logistical nightmare of the conference arrangements. The Danish government and the United Nations together could have done better (although Cameron used somewhat more forthright language). The media played an intrusive role; there was an entrance system that didn’t seem to do anything other than create queues outside and leave the hall itself largely empty (and it got worse in the second week when the heads of state arrived with their own security teams); there were no break-out areas to facilitate private discussion. In short, there was no hope of any sort of agreement being reached for banal, logistical reasons. How depressing is that?
A more positive aspect of the discussion was the theme that carbon taxes won’t work, while a carbon market will make a difference. The consensus view was that no individual government is ever going to set a carbon tax so high that it will change corporate behaviour. The simple tactic will be for companies to change location to lower-tax venues. However, a carbon market makes sense to business people – who like the mechanism, see the market as an efficient mediator of money, business and politics, and understand the basics of how it all works. The feeling was that the CPRS would go through, and that reforestation projects (REDD) are also attracting much interest from corporates and banks' carbon-trading desks alike.
All of which leaves Citola very well placed. As ever, the real business gets done in the informal talks after the main events at these organised get-togethers. Sorry to tantalise, but all we can say right now is that the reaction to Citola’s model was really positive.
Post new comment