30 October 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 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”.
