Global adviser Yvo de Boer says the economic crisis can present an opportunity for nations to change their sustainability direction, writes Joanne Hunt

YVO DE Boer leans over the welcoming open fire in the smart Dublin hotel in which he is staying – not to warm himself but to inspect what’s burning.

For the ex-UN official who shepherded troubled climate talks for nearly four years, the environment is always a concern.

In his tenure as executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Dutchman is credited with moving the issue of climate change to the top of the political agenda.

Refereeing talks between the 194 countries in the convention was akin to herding mice at a crossroads, but De Boer embraced the impossible task.

A former Dutch civil servant, De Boer has proven himself capable of gently twisting the arms of world leaders to raise their commitments on climate change while patiently chairing interminable and often fractious climate talks.

In the case of the UNFCCC, all decisions must be adopted by consensus. The pace of negotiation could be described as glacial were it not for the fact, that due to climate change, our glaciers are now moving quite quickly.

But more than an adept diplomat, De Boer’s passion for carbon reduction runs deep. In 2007, after an all-night final plenary session at the Bali climate conference, he broke down and left the podium in frustration. Soon afterwards, the Bali action plan was adopted.

While last year’s Copenhagen climate change conference drew more than 100 heads of state, the meeting failed to reach a binding deal. De Boer announced his resignation in February but still insists that Copenhagen “was not a failure”.

“I did not expect a legally binding agreement to come out of Copenhagen. I think you need to understand what a treaty is going to entail before you’re willing to sign up to it,” he says.

While he says that Copenhagen was “frustrating, and a circus for a lot of other reasons”, he feels there were positives.

“All industrialised countries have since submitted targets for 2020, 40 developing countries have submitted national action plans to limit their emissions, 120 heads of state attended – so it all depends on your definition of failure,” he says.

Having left the UN in July, De Boer is now a sustainability consultant with KPMG. He is in Dublin to launch a report on Ireland by the Carbon Disclosure Project, an independent organisation that works with 3,000 companies globally to measure, report and reduce their carbon emissions.

The report, a voluntary climate scorecard is only in its second year here but has doubled the number of Irish companies participating. Ireland’s 50-per-cent response rate from the largest Iseq-quoted companies including Kerry Group, CRH and Diageo, however, is well behind the 80-per-cent response rate of the 300 largest companies across Europe.

For De Boer, not knowing your carbon footprint is a business nonsense.

“If you don’t understand your carbon footprint, then you don’t understand a major cost factor in your performance and you don’t understand how evolving policy is likely to impact your business,” he says.

“It’s difficult to understand why some companies wouldn’t wish to have a more precise handle on it.”

With many boardrooms grappling with more urgent balance sheet woes, can he really expect them to prioritise the environment? For the Dutchman, they can’t afford not to. Five years ago, the European Council set a target of an 80 per cent reduction in emissions by 2050. Achieving this target has repercussions for all of us.

“If you’re an industrial company, investing in capital stock that’s going to be around for 30 to 40 years or if you’re in the transportation sector investing in a fleet of vehicles, then I think it’s very obviously wise to take this longer view,” he says.

In Ireland, transport accounts for 21 per cent of our overall carbon emissions according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 report. After criticism from Minister Eamon Ryan for their failure to participate in last year’s Carbon Disclosure Project report, Aer Lingus has this year stepped up to the plate; Ryanair, however, has not.

From 2012, aviation will no longer be exempt from the emissions trading scheme (ETS) that operates across the EU. Under the scheme, companies are given an annual emissions quota. The ETS caps the overall level of emissions permitted but, within that limit, allows participants to buy and sell allowances as they require. What does he think of the impending admission of the aviation business to the scheme?

“It should drive companies to innovate because they basically have the choice of purchasing emission rights, which is a pure cost factor, or being more innovative and efficient. The latter has a double advantage in that they don’t have to purchase emission rights and they have a saving on fuel,” he says.

Ultimately the private sector is calling for climate change policy that is “long, loud and legal”, he says.

“Long means a long-term perspective on government policy – not these little three- or four-year hops where you never know what the next government is going to do,” he says. “They want loud in the sense of goals that are ambitious and challenging, but they also need a legal framework so that they can be sure their competitors are going to be confronted with the same policies and imperatives that they are confronted with,” he says.

“Companies are not opposed to climate change legislation but what they would like to see is fairness,” he says. “But if the result of policy is simply the displacement of economic activity from one place to another, then what’s the point?”

For De Boer, the economic crisis presents an opportunity for countries to shift their economies in a much more sustainable direction. For him, China and Korea are leading the charge.

“China is now the largest investor worldwide in renewable energy. They have a target to reduce the CO2 intensity of their economy by 40 to 45 per cent by 2020,” he says. “I’m sure China is doing this because of a deep-felt love of the planet,” he quips, “but also because of a deep-felt love for their pocket book.”

The Carbon Disclosure Project results for Ireland show some promise with half of respondents agreeing that they are exposed to climate change risk and half setting themselves carbon reduction targets.

So what is De Boer’s advice to Ireland? “Taxation and an educated workforce made Ireland an attractive country to invest in in the past,” he says. “But the question now is, what sort of Ireland do you want to create for people to invest in as it recovers? Is it a country that looks back or one that looks forward?”