The UK announced that all companies listed on London Stock Exchange will be required to report on their annual greenhouse gas emissions starting next year. And it will invest $234 million to help 6 million farmers in sub-Saharan Africa adapt farming practices to a changing climate.
The Maldives will create the world's largest marine reserve, encompassing all 1,192 of its islands by 2017.
Barbados will increase renewable energy to 29% of its electricity consumption by 2030.
Grenada pledged to have 100% green transportation and electricity by 2030.
Mexico pledged to protect the Cabo Pulmo National Park from development, one of the world's great coral reefs which is threatened by tourism development.
The World Bank will double the leveraging of its clean energy lending to $16 billion a year, focusing on initiatives such as renewable energy and clean cookstoves.
Eight multilateral banks announced they would fund $175 billion in loans and grants for sustainable transportation projects in developing countries over the next 10 years.
Megacities pledged as part of the C40 Climate Leadership Group to cut methane emissions from landfills and to develop a web library on what the world's cities are doing about climate change - and tools and resources cities can use to further their work.
Company Commitments
The Consumer Goods Forum committed to achieve zero net deforestation in their supply chains by 2020, particularly in commodities like soy, palm oil, paper and beef, which are responsible for half of the world's deforestation. The Forum represents more than 400 well-known companies with combined annual revenues of over $3.1 trillion, such as 3M, Clorox, Coca-Cola and General Mills. The US government committed to support their effort and will co-host a high-level Partnership Dialogue in Washington DC within 100 days.
24 major corporations signed on to the Valuing Natural Capital initiative to develop an ecological accounting model that includes the value of the world's forests, freshwater and marine systems in all business economics.
25 companies from the insurance industry, worth over $5 trillion in assets and representing over 10% of world premiums, will promote the Principles for Sustainable Insurance with a goal to offer risk management tools that support environmental, social and economic sustainability.
Sir Richard Branson's Carbon War Room will work with Aruba to transition the island to 100% renewable energy and the world's first sustainable economy.
French utility GDF Suez will invest in 50 local energy projects in developing countries by 2020 and boost its own renewable energy capacity 50% by 2015.
Italian utility Eni has earmarked $5 billion to reduce its carbon intensity and spend $32 million in the Democratic Republic of Congo to capture gas from oil flaring.
Richard Branson says in an interview with Bloomberg, after signing onto banning oil drilling in the Arctic, "The role of companies is all the more important for the world because so little has come out of governments. Governments could have made some big announcements this week that wouldn't have cost their countries any money -- that could have made their companies money. They could have got rid of the subsidy on fossil fuels, which would have helped start a complete clean industry and given it the massive boost it needed and save their countries money. They chose not to do that. They could have agreed to protect the open seas and police the open seas instead of letting them carry on getting decimated by fishing and so on. So companies have really got to step in and do the best they can without the proper ground rules set by governments."
"Behind the scenes there are lots of fantastic initiatives, but there's one big thing that every governments could do -- get rid of fossil fuel subsidies. The fossil fuel industry is making tons of money. It's not going to harm them very much and it would be the one move which could get the whole world back on track."
Natural Capitalism
Although there's a split on the value of natural capitalism that I referred to earlier, many people see this move as a breakthrough, including us.
Ecological economists have been saying for decades that government measures of GDP (Gross National Product) are flawed - they fail to show the true cost of activities. What's known as "externalities" in financial accounting are critical to protecting earth's natural systems. If the health and environmental costs of coal were included in the price, for example, renewable energy would immediately be much cheaper than coal. .
57 countries, the European Commisson and 86 private companies - including Wal-Mart, Unilever and many of the world's biggest corporations - agreed to create natural capital accounting rules that integrate the value of natural assets like clean air, clean water, forests and ecosystems into business decisions. Countries that signed on include the US, Britain, France and Germany, but not China or Brazil.
Some have already endorsed the Natural Capital Declaration and the Natural Capital Leadership Compact.
