For decades, the world’s major companies have been increasingly successful in telling governments to keep out of their way. They have demanded that environmental problems be dealt with on a voluntary basis using market forces, and corporate lobby groups have said over and over again that customer demand will solve problems and that firms can rise to the green challenge through choice rather that regulatory requirement. In short, green rules have been deemed to be red tape that would damage competitiveness and stifle innovation. Suddenly, there is a real change of tone. Last week, the Confederation of British Industry published a climate change report that called on the government to deploy the full policy and legal armoury of the state to cut emissions. The next day, legal firm Clifford Chance published a survey of leading corporate executives, to reveal that more than four-fifths believe more regulation, not less, is needed for them to tackle climate change successfully. Then, perhaps most importantly of all, came the initiative launched by the Prince of Wales’s business leaders’ group, pressing governments to collectively agree a tough, science-based and legally binding treaty to reduce emissions in Bali. This is new […]