Plights of the Roundtable

International business group joins chorus begging for emissions regulations

Yet another group of businesses has come out in support of international greenhouse-gas regulation. The Global Roundtable on Climate Change, which includes nearly 100 large companies, issued a statement Tuesday espousing an increasingly common belief: "If we delay too long in beginning the changeover to increasingly de-carbonized energy systems, the eventual costs will only rise and the impact of climate change will only become more severe." The pact urges world leaders to set "scientifically informed" binding limits on emissions of greenhouse gases by 2012, and put a price on carbon dioxide in a global market. It's got the autographs of reps from Air France-KLM, Alcoa, Allianz, Bayer, Citigroup, Ford, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Munich Re, Swiss Re, Toyota, Volvo, Wal-Mart, and more. Says Alcoa CEO Alain Belda: "I am convinced that we can build a global plan of action on climate change in ways that create more economic opportunities than risks." Welp, that makes millions of us.