Big Business and Greenpeace Urge Action on Climate Change

Two organisations with a history of mutual distrust and recrimination - big business and Greenpeace - have sunk their differences to appeal to the world to take action on climate change.

The World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and Greenpeace held an unprecedented joint press conference last night to urge the world to ratify the Kyoto protocol and begin to cut greenhouse gases - a course the US has firmly rejected.

The WBCSD includes such Greenpeace enemies as GM promoters Monsanto, chemical giant Dupont, car manufacturers General Motors, baby milk producers Nestlé, and Cogema, the French company that processes spent nuclear fuel. But both organisations are seriously concerned that as the greenhouse effect worsens it will seriously damage world stability and therefore business.

Some of the 160 multinational companies that make up the WBCSD also have serious investments in products designed to be less polluting than the current generation of cars and fossil fuels. For example oil giants BP, Chevron Texaco, Conoco and Shell are all into alternative energies like solar power and are developing the hydrogen economy.

One notable absentee from the WBCSD line-up is the world's largest oil company, Exxon Mobil, which is credited with getting George Bush to pull out of the Kyoto deal. Although the rest of the world pledged to go ahead without America, the protocol has not yet been ratified - a few nations, including Canada and Australia, remain reluctant.

Bjorn Stigson, a vice-president of WBCSD, said: "This is a good example of where the need to save the planet is so important it transcends any other differences we may have. We will no doubt disagree about much else at this summit but we are united in the belief that we must stop climate change before it is too late."