3C launches Copenhagen summit evaluation tool for business

3C includes nearly 70 of the world’s largest companies including BP, Citigroup, Unilever and Siemens and has been endorsed by The Climate Group, a UK-based organisation that works with more than 50 companies worldwide.

The 3C score card is a way of identifying and following key performance indicators and applying them to the climate conference’s outcomes. By grading the negotiations on seven key issues across a four-point scale, the score card will be used to summarise all the important issues and track where we stand on the climate negotiations.

Outcomes are rated on a scale from ‘Ideal’ to ‘Not Good Enough’ on issues such as global goals, financial transfer, measurement and verification, coverage across countries and sectors, technologies, and policy progress.

“We want people to be able to have a more nuanced debate about where the climate negotiations stand,” said Jesse Fahnestock, Climate Policy advisor for 3C group and the Swedish energy company Vattenfall, founder of 3C.

“There is a lot of extreme or hysterical discussion about total success or total failure. But in reality, we may have some successes in some areas and identify progress that can be worked on. In other areas there may be real problems we have to face,” said Fahnestock.

The score card will be of most use to the business community as an information tool, he said. It will improve the understanding of the issues and help businesses work out what the summit outcomes mean for individual firms.

“It could be very useful at a very high level – for people to decide how Copenhagen went and to work out what it means for the speed and strength of changes that are coming. But most importantly it helps in conversations with other stakeholders, policy and the media, ” said Fahnestock.

The score card will be of use before, during and after Copenhagen. “We want to use it in advance to bring some subtlety into the discussion. Then at Copenhagen we can use it during the conference as there will be a lot of conversations about what’s being achieved," he said.

Fahnestock is quick to point out that, “nothing ends at Copenhagen,” and the score card can be of most use after the conference.

“Copenhagen is a key milestone but not the end of the road. Afterwards, is the most important time as that’s when real work starts hammering out the specifics of the deal, determining how they will shape policy and how businesses will respond in developing their strategies and products.”