'Companies must send a 'clear message' on climate change' - UN Global Compact director

Business needs to step up when it comes to tackling climate challenges, writes UN Global Compact director Georg Kell on the pages of The Guardian at the time when policy makers and influencial business leaders gather at COP19.

He adds that "Today's global challenges are too complex for any one sector to face alone, and climate change is not a stand-alone environmental issue. It is a global cross-cutting challenge to which businesses need to adapt in order to remain profitable. A host of other categories are tied in. The short list of these critical issues includes water, food, energy, health, migration and response to humanitarian disasters. The climactic volatility exhibited in the recent disastrous storm in the Philippines is only the most recent reminder of the dangers we are dealing with,

Moreover, as climate change is likely to exacerbate inequality, place pressure on access to water and other resources, create sudden pockets of hunger, and force new population movements, peace and stability are also at stake. The implications truly cut across all of the UN's areas of interest and involve all of the world's Millennium Development Goals."

So far 350 businesses have joined the joint UN Global Compact – secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – UN Environment Programme caring for climate initiative (C4C), which mobilises companies to implement climate change solutions, publicly disclose emissions and help shape international public policy.