Environmental Leader

Five major U.S. companies are calling for congressional action on climate change and clean energy. Nike, Levi Strauss, Starbucks, Sun Microsystems, and Timberland launched a new business coalition called Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy.

The group’s goal is to work directly with the business community and members of Congress to pass energy and climate change legislation that is consistent with the following eight principles:

1. Set GHG reduction targets to at least 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
2. Establish a GHG cap-and-trade system that auctions 100 percent of carbon pollution allowances.
3. Establish energy efficiency policies to achieve at least a doubling of the historic rate of energy efficiency improvement.
4. Promote fuel-efficient vehicles, plug-in electric hybrids, low-carbon fuels, and transit-oriented development.
5. Increase investment in energy efficiency, renewables and carbon capture and storage technologies while eliminating subsidies for fossil-fuel industries.
6. Stimulate job growth by investing in climate-based solutions, especially “green-collar” jobs in low-income communities and others vulnerable to climate change’s economic impact.
7. Require 20 percent of electricity to be generated from renewable energy sources by 2020, and 30 percent by 2030.
8. Limiting new coal-fired power plants to those that capture and store carbon emissions and phase out those that don’t fit the standard by 2030.