13/12/2005 -A Business Week, a mais importante
revista de negócios dos Estados Unidos,
em sua última edição que
já se encontra nas bancas brasileiras,
elaborou um ranking das empresas e das pessoas
que estão contribuindo de forma efetiva
para melhorar a qualidade de vida no planeta,
desenvolvendo esforços para reduzir as
emissões de carbono. A única personalidade
do hemisfério sul é o secretário
do Meio Ambiente do Estado de São Paulo,
professor José Goldemberg, que só
soube da indicação em sua volta
ao Brasil, após participar de reunião
em Montreal, no Canadá, onde se discutiu
o futuro do Protocolo de Kyoto.
A revista faz uma avaliação
da atual situação das emissões
de carbono no mundo e da negativa do presidente
George W. Bush, dos Estados Unidos, em não
participar do esforço pela redução
dos gases de efeito estufa. A publicação,
ao traçar o perfil do secretário
do Meio Ambiente, diz o seguinte:
“Se você estava pensando
como o Brasil reduziu pela metade suas emissões
de CO2 desde 1975, Goldemberg é a resposta.
Ele é o pai do enorme crescimento dos
biocombustíveis no país, principalmente
etanol de cana-de-açúcar. Afora
evitar a emissão de 500 milhões
de toneladas de gases de efeito estufa, o
programa brasileiro de biocombustíveis
reduziu as importações brasileiras
de petróleo e seu débito externo
em aproximadamente 50%, um grande benefício
para um país bastante endividado”.
A surpresa de Goldemberg,
além de ter seu nome lembrado pela
revista, foi constatar que é o único
representante dos países localizados
abaixo da linha do Equador e se situar em
sétimo lugar na lista aberta por Tony
Blair, primeiro ministro da Inglaterra. Entre
os 20 nomes listados estão o presidente
da China, Zhao Hang, o governador da Califórnia,
Arnold Schwarzenegger, o ministro do meio
ambiente da Alemanha, Franzjosef Schafhausen,
e o presidente da British Petroleum, John
Browne.
Também foram contemplados
o prefeito de Londres, Kenneth Livinsgstone,
e a prefeita de Heidelberg, Alemanha, Beate
Weber.
BUSINESS WEEK - DECEMBER
12, 2005 BATTLING CLIMATE CHANGE/Online Extra
Individual AchieversIndividuals
who stand out for
their efforts to cut gases that cause global
warming
1 Tony Blair
British Prime Minister
On matters relating to the threat of climate
change and actions to mitigate it, Blair has
no peer among heads of state. He was the first
leader of an industrial nation to look far
beyond the Kyoto Treaty, which calls for single-digit
cuts in greenhouse gases (GHGs) by 2012. For
Britain, Blair pledged an extraordinarily
ambitious goal: a 60% reduction by 2050. His
influence within the G8 elevated awareness
of environmental issues -- and he doesn't
hesitate to diplomatically berate President
George Bush for failing to address the lopsided
U.S. role in global warming
2 Franzjosef Schafhausen,
German Ministry of the Environment, Nature
Conservation & Nuclear Safety Maintaining
a steady hand despite political vagaries,
Schafhausen has already engineered policies
that more than meet Germany's Kyoto obligation:
GHGs today are 19% lower than 11000 levels.
In the process, he has been instrumental in
creating 450,000 new jobs in renewable energies,
helping to alleviate Germany's high unemployment
rate
3 John Browne
BP Chairman and CEO Lord Browne sent seismic
shocks through the oil industry in 1997 when
he declared that by 2010, BP would reduce
GHG emissions by 10% from 11000 levels. That
was six months before negotiations on the
Kyoto protocols began in earnest. His visionary
call for industry action has since proved
its worth. BP has reaped huge -- and sometimes
unexpected -- profits while transforming its
traditional oil-field culture and drastically
shrinking its so-called carbon footprint
4 Arnold Schwarzenegger
California Governor His resolute climate agenda
distresses fellow Republicans and challenges
U.S. auto makers. He has issued an executive
order that requires California, the world's
sixth-largest economy, to slash GHGs by 80%
by 2050 -- the most aggressive state-level
target yet. As one part of his crusade, Schwarzenegger
backed the law that mandates a cut by one-third
in tailpipe emissions for all cars and light
trucks by the 2016 model year. Carmakers are
not pleased. With the support of the Bush
Administration, they're suing
5 Zhao Hang
President of China Automotive Technology &
Research Center Hang believes that an emerging
economy should leapfrog the old development
patterns that spurred global warming. Working
with U.S. and Japanese advisors, he devised
fuel-economy standards and got them approved
by China's central government. The standards
are 20% tougher than those now in effect in
the U.S. That's important because come 2030,
China expects some 300 million autos to hit
the roads -- 10 times today's traffic
6 Fran J. Pavley
California State Assembly Member. Pavley entered
politics after a 25-year career as a teacher,
and she still has an educator's mindset. In
2002, she handed the auto industry a tough
global-warming assignment: By 2016, find a
way to reduce GHG emissions from cars and
light trucks by 30% -- or don't sell them
in California. Seven Northeast states, including
New York, have pledged to adopt the strict
air-quality limits set by the so-called Pavley
bill (it's actually law, although it's being
challenged in court)
7 Jose Goldemberg
Environment Secretary for Brazil's Sao Paolo
State If you've wondered how Brazil has halved
CO2 emissions since 1975, Goldemberg is the
answer. He's the father of the country's huge
growth in biofuels, mainly methanol from crops.
Aside from keeping about 500 million metric
tons of GHG emissions out of the atmosphere,
the biofuels program has reduced Brazil's
oil imports and its external debt by roughly
50%, a major benefit for a heavily indebted
country
8 Greg Nickels
Seattle Mayor On Feb. 16, 2005, the day the
Kyoto Treaty took effect -- with the U.S.
reneging -- Nickels invited America's mayors
to commit their cities unilaterally to the
Kyoto targets. Already, 187 mayors from 38
states have signed on, and his climate campaign
has won bipartisan endorsement from the U.S.
Conference of Mayors. At home, Nickels turned
rhetoric into action: Seattle City Light in
November became the first electric utility
to achieve zero net GHG emissions. The city-owned
utility still emits 200,000 metric tons of
CO2 but offsets this by buying GHG credits
from other agencies and companies
9 Kenneth Livingstone and
Nicki Gavron
London's Mayor and Deputy Mayor, respectively
They aim to turn London into a model of a
sustainable future for all the world's great
cities. Their multi-faceted attack on carbon
emissions includes policies that promote energy
efficiency, renewables, and greater use of
public transport. London's pioneering congestion
charge on motorists who insist on driving
their cars into heavy-traffic areas has generated
$292 million in revenue -- while thinning
traffic by 15% and reducing GHG emissions
by 19%
10 Philip Angelides
California Treasurer. The state's top financial
officer oversees more than $250 billion in
pension-fund investments, and Angelides is
using his fiduciary muscle to support low-carbon
solutions. His Green Wave initiative will
plow $1.5 billion into clean-energy technologies
and environmentally responsible ventures,
and he's imposing tough demands on other investments
to measure up environmentally. He was behind
the greening of the state's 70,000 vehicles
11 Beate Weber
Heidelberg (Germany) Mayor Since her election
in 11000, Weber has pushed through stringent
initiatives to combat climate change. Her
authority may be limited to Heidelberg, but
residents are enjoying cleaner air. Regulations
on the energy efficiency of public buildings
have chopped CO2 emissions by 30% since 1993,
and the city now purchases a quarter of its
electric power from renewable sources. Also,
a non-profit agency has helped thousands of
home and small-building owners to install
energy-saving systems.
12 Gary Doer
Premier of Manitoba Under Doer, sustainable
development has become an economic lynchpin
in the Canadian province of Manitoba. His
action plan on climate change aims to shrink
GHGs by 23%, or almost four times the Kyoto
target. By boosting hydro power and planting
more wind farms, Manitoba expects to have
energy to spare, which can be exported over
the electric grid to neighboring provinces.
Within Manitoba, Doer has decreed that all
gasoline must be mixed with methanol, and
he's a fan of grabbing the methane gas that
seeps from landfills. The methane or its hydrogen
content could power future fuel-cell buses
and, since Manitoba is a bus-making hub, put
more zip in the provincial economy
13 Roger Duncan
Austin Energy Deputy General Manager The capital
of Texas wants to be cleanest city in the
U.S., and Duncan is making sure his municipally
owned utility does its part. For the last
three years, Austin Energy has topped all
U.S. utilities in sales of renewable energy.
More than 7,500 homeowners and 350 businesses
are GreenChoice customers -- and 90% of the
companies have opted to buy renewable energy
exclusively. Duncan's chief worry: running
out of enough clean energy to satisfy growing
demand
14 Pasquale Pistorio
STMicroelectronics Honorary Chairman More
than a decade ago, his children convinced
Pistorio that companies -- including chipmakers
-- had to act responsibly on global-warming
issues. In 1995, Pistorio issued his "Environmental
Decalogue," or 10 commandments for sustainable
development. When he retired as CEO early
this year, he left behind clear evidence that
his policies are making a difference. Over
the preceding decade, STMicro slashed GHGs
by 50%, and total accumulated energy savings
are projected to reach $900 million by 2010
15 John Bond
HSBC Group Chairman When it comes to banking
on climate-change protection, Sir John is
ahead of most. Last year his bank pledged
to become carbon-neutral within two years.
HSBC is now in the throes of implementing
an emissions-reduction program at 11,000 sites
worldwide. Managers of 65 million square feet
of office space are scrambling to become more
energy-efficient. Bond also wants to wake
up business customers to the costs of climate
change. For example, the bank has developed
a scheme to rate carbon-risk exposure
16 Jeffrey R. Immelt
General Electric Chairman and CEO Immelt's
so-called ecomagination program is not only
a sweeping business plan for climate protection
but also could be the tipping point for industry.
GE has replaced General Motors as America's
biggest company -- so if what's good for the
environment is good for GE, maybe what's good
for GE is also good for the country. Immelt
suggested as much at the May roll-out of ecomagination
in Washington. In diplomatic terms, he said
it was time for the feds to reconsider the
U.S. stance on global warming. For its part,
GE will double R&D in clean tech to $1.5
billion by 2012, and Immelt projected that
businesses and consumers will spend $20 billion
on its greener offerings in 2020
17 George Pataki
New York Governor Pataki formed a Greenhouse
Gas Task Force in 2001, and in 2003 he got
nine other Northeast and Mid-Atlantic governors
to agree to cooperate on climate matters.
His advocacy led to a state energy plan, adopted
in 2002, that calls for a 10% trim of GHG
emissions by 2020. Pataki's renewable energy
portfolio is more aggressive: It requires
25% of the state's energy to come from clean
sources by 2013. His Regional Greenhouse Gas
Initiative, while still awaiting approval,
would cap emissions from more than 700 utilities
in nine states and set up a regional carbon-trading
market
18 Bill Richardson
New Mexico Governor As a former secretary
of the Energy Dept., Richardson knows better
than most what the stakes are in sustainable
energy. That makes the executive order he
signed in June especially significant. It
may be the most aggressive statewide program
yet. It commits New Mexico to a 2050 goal
of cutting GHGs by 75% from 2000 levels. But
he's not content with creating new climate-change
attitudes in just his state. As co-head of
the Western Governors Assn., he's spearheading
an effort to develop 30,000 MW of clean energy
by 2015 and to find ways to prod a 20% regional
hike in energy efficiency by 2020
19 Rocky Anderson
Salt Lake City Mayor On the eve of the 2002
Winter Olympics, Anderson announced that his
city would abide by the Kyoto Protocol's emission-reduction
goals. He has since implemented a local but
wide-ranging climate action plan. It attacks
emissions from several angles. For instance,
the city is curbing public-transport emissions
with more buses powered by natural gas. Building
owners have incentives to improve energy efficiency
and install cogeneration plants. And the city's
utility buys wind power and harvests methane
gas from landfills
20 Jim Rogers
Cinergy CEO He runs a huge coal-burning utility,
but Rogers has called for a "moon-shot
sense of urgency" to meet the threat
of climate change. To trim 10 million tons,
or 12.5%, from Cinergy's CO2 emissions by
2012, he plans to spend $21 million. This
includes a bet on coal-gasification technology,
which if successful would significantly reduce
the amount of CO2 normally released by burning
coal.
