(CPLC, 1 No­vem­ber 2021) — Lead­ers from the worlds of pol­i­tics, busi­ness, acad­e­mia, and civ­il so­ci­ety, have called for ne­go­tia­tors at COP26 to ur­gent­ly shift pol­i­cy to put a true price on car­bon emis­sions. In an open let­ter co­or­di­nat­ed by the Car­bon Pric­ing Lead­er­ship Coali­tion (CPLC), an ini­tia­tive over­seen by the World Bank, se­nior fig­ures warned car­bon pric­ing has too of­ten been praised as an idea but ig­nored as a pol­i­cy.

Lead­ing sig­na­to­ries were CPLC co-chairs, Juan Car­los Jo­bet, the Chilean Min­is­ter for En­er­gy and Min­ing, and Lord Bark­er of Bat­tle, Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man of En+ Group. They were joined by Steven Guil­beault, Min­is­ter of En­vi­ron­ment and Cli­mate Change, Gov­ern­ment of Cana­da, Pro­fes­sor Dr. Bar­bara Baars­ma, CEO of Rabo Car­bon Bank, Dim­itri de Vreeze, Co-CEO of Roy­al DSM, Mauri­cio Cár­de­nas, Vis­it­ing Se­nior Re­search Fel­low at the Cen­ter on Glob­al En­er­gy Pol­i­cy, Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, Michael Green Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of Cli­mate Xchange, Mike Haigh, Ex­ec­u­tive Chair of Mott Mac­Don­ald and Thomas-Olivi­er Léau­ti­er, Di­rec­tor of the Group Uni­ver­si­ty, Chief econ­o­mist, Élec­tric­ité de France.

Al­so sup­port­ing the let­ter was a cross-sec­tion of the world’s lead­ing com­pa­nies, uni­ver­si­ties, civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions, and busi­ness coali­tions. The group urged gov­ern­ments to think cre­ative­ly about how car­bon pric­ing could be im­ple­ment­ed to en­sure a just tran­si­tion to a low car­bon econ­o­my, and to be smart about an­tic­i­pat­ing po­ten­tial ad­verse ef­fects.

Lord Bark­er of Bat­tle, Co-Chair of the Car­bon Pric­ing Lead­er­ship Coali­tion and Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man of En+ Group, said:

“It is time to stop talk­ing about car­bon pric­ing and start mak­ing it hap­pen. The glob­al sup­port is un­equiv­o­cal, the log­ic sound—it is on­ly po­lit­i­cal will that is lag­ging.

For too long, emis­sions have been treat­ed as some­body else’s prob­lem, skew­ing our econ­o­my against its fu­ture in­ter­ests. A fair and ac­cu­rate car­bon price will en­sure pol­luters pay to­day for the dam­age they cause to­mor­row and re­ward the in­no­va­tors cre­at­ing a bet­ter fu­ture for peo­ple and plan­et.”

Juan Car­los Jo­bet, Co-Chair of the Car­bon Pric­ing Lead­er­ship Coali­tion and Min­is­ter of En­er­gy for Chile, said:

“There will be very lit­tle chance for suc­cess in com­bat­ing cli­mate change if coun­tries and com­pa­nies do not col­lab­o­rate with each oth­er. The most cost-ef­fi­cient way to do it is through car­bon pric­ing.

A well-de­signed in­stru­ment, com­ple­men­tary to oth­er low car­bon poli­cies, can dri­ve emis­sions and tech­nol­o­gy costs down –ef­fec­tive­ly and flex­i­bly-- by pro­vid­ing the right price sig­nals to the pri­vate sec­tor. In this way, the costs of car­bon can be prop­er­ly in­ter­nal­ized, and com­pa­nies can share those costs more equal­ly”.

The Car­bon Pric­ing Lead­er­ship Coali­tion (CPLC) is a vol­un­tary ini­tia­tive that catal­y­ses ac­tion to­wards the suc­cess­ful im­ple­men­ta­tion of car­bon pric­ing around the world. The CPLC brings to­geth­er lead­ers from gov­ern­ment, busi­ness, civ­il so­ci­ety and acad­e­mia to sup­port car­bon pric­ing, share ex­pe­ri­ences and en­hance the glob­al, re­gion­al, na­tion­al and sub-na­tion­al un­der­stand­ing of car­bon pric­ing im­ple­men­ta­tion. The CPLC Sec­re­tari­at is ad­min­is­tered by The World Bank Group.

Image courtesy CPLC.

The CPLC Let­ter is­sued to world lead­ers at COP26

As min­is­ters and busi­ness lead­ers from across the world, we sup­port the im­per­a­tive of a suc­cess­ful and am­bi­tious out­come for COP26 in Glas­gow.

How­ev­er, that must mean much more than a wor­thy com­mu­niqué full of vague pledges. We need ac­tion. Glas­gow must un­lock the fi­nance and in­vest­ment to fire up a tru­ly glob­al green econ­o­my and start a shift in pol­i­cy that puts a true price on car­bon pol­lu­tion. It will help clean tech­nolo­gies to com­pete with fos­sil fu­els, pro­mote emis­sion re­duc­tions where it is most ef­fi­cient and gen­er­ate rev­enue as­sist­ing the most vul­ner­a­ble.

Car­bon pric­ing in the past has too of­ten been praised as an idea but ig­nored as a pol­i­cy be­cause it can re­sult in un­in­tend­ed con­se­quences. But if we are smart, re­al­is­tic and in­clu­sive, any gov­ern­ment can deal with those is­sues head on. And we have to.

A “just tran­si­tion” is the on­ly way the world can reach net ze­ro with con­fi­dence. The poor­est should not have to shoul­der any fur­ther bur­dens be­cause of a lack of imag­i­na­tion on the part of pol­i­cy mak­ers. So let’s think cre­ative­ly about car­bon pric­ing.

The Car­bon Pric­ing Lead­er­ship Coali­tion (CPLC) Task­force has pub­lished a re­port show­ing clear­ly what net ze­ro is and sug­gest­ing cred­i­ble path­ways to get there.

It needs to be act­ed on. The time for a re­al price on car­bon is now.

Yours faith­ful­ly,

The Rt Hon Lord Bark­er of Bat­tle
Co-Chair High-Lev­el As­sem­bly of the Car­bon Pric­ing Lead­er­ship Coali­tion
Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man En+ Group

Juan Car­los Jo­bet
Co-Chair High-Lev­el As­sem­bly of the Car­bon Pric­ing Lead­er­ship Coali­tion
Min­is­ter of En­er­gy
Min­is­ter of Min­ing
Chile

The let­ter was en­dorsed by 38 part­ners of the World Bank’s Car­bon Pric­ing Lead­er­ship Coali­tion (CPLC): AC­CIONA; ACT Fi­nan­cial So­lu­tions; ALL­COT Group; Bear­feldt; CDP; Cen­tre for Cli­mate Change En­gage­ment, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge; Cli­mate Fo­cus; Con­fed­er­a­tion of Dan­ish In­dus­try; COPENOR; Dalmia Ce­ment; Dim­itri de Vreeze, Co-CEO, Roy­al DSM; EDF; En­er­gias de Por­tu­gal (EDP); Glob­al Green Growth In­sti­tute (GG­GI); Gov­ern­ment of Que­bec; Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go; Iber­dro­la; Mahin­dra Group; Mauri­cio Cár­de­nas; Vis­it­ing Se­nior Re­search Fel­low Cen­ter on Glob­al En­er­gy Pol­i­cy, Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty; Michael Green, Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Cli­mate Xchange; Mike Haigh, Ex­ec­u­tive Chair, Mott Mac­Don­ald; Na­tion­al Busi­ness Ini­tia­tive (NBI); NaxRo; Pro­fes­sor Dr. Bar­bara Baars­ma, CEO Rabo Car­bon Bank; Roy­al Philips; Saint-Gob­ain; South Pole; Steven Guil­beault, Min­is­ter of En­vi­ron­ment and Cli­mate Change, Gov­ern­ment of Cana­da; Stock­holm En­vi­ron­ment In­sti­tute; Swedish Bioen­er­gy As­so­ci­a­tion; The George Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty; The Ha­ga Ini­tia­tive; The Na­ture Con­ser­van­cy (TNC); Thomas-Olivi­er Léau­ti­er, Di­rec­tor of the Group Uni­ver­si­ty, Chief econ­o­mist, Élec­tric­ité de France; Unilever; Uni­ver­si­ty of the South Pa­cif­ic; World Busi­ness Coun­cil for Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment (WBCSD); and Ze­ro Car­bon Cam­paign.