A coalition of 20 business organizations, including Europe's power and gas industry groups, on Tuesday issued a joint call on governments to ensure the Paris climate change agreement supports international cooperation through market-based measures.
"Businesses around the world remain concerned that, at this late juncture of the negotiations, important market provisions remain unclear," said Dirk Forrister, CEO of the International Emissions Trading Association.
"Given the need to ensure any future climate change policies achieve their objectives while keeping costs down, market mechanisms need to be part of the solution," he said.
The call from businesses comes ahead of the COP21 UN climate summit in Paris, running November 30 to December 11, where almost 200 countries have committed to agreeing a global climate protection deal to take effect in 2020.
In a letter to more than 90 governments at the start of pre-Paris climate talks in Bonn, Germany this week, the business groups urged governments to include elements that underpin markets in both the Paris agreement and later decisions under the UN to operationalize the core deal.
Energy industry groups joined the call for effective mechanisms to deliver credible emissions reductions at lowest cost.
"We believe that market-based mechanisms, such as carbon markets, are the most effective tool for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and stimulating investments in low-carbon technologies and energy efficiency," said Hans ten Berge, secretary general of power-generating industry association Eurelectric.
"The importance of carbon markets should be anchored in the new climate change regime with a view to enabling the development of a global carbon market in the longer term," he said.
Beate Raabe, secretary general of Eurogas, said: "Sound and efficient carbon markets continue to be the most cost-effective way to reach the world's agreed climate goals."
"Carbon pricing is one of the most powerful mechanisms we can put in place to reduce emissions and speed the transition to a low-carbon economy," said Peter Bakker, CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
"Many companies are already using internal carbon prices, and the external call for a formal carbon price has grown stronger across the world in 2015. This is a united call for action from the business community as we head towards the historic climate negotiations in Paris this December," he said.
The group includes BUSINESSEUROPE, Business Council for Sustainable Energy, Carbon Market Institute, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Climate Markets and Investment Association and the Edison Electric Institute.
It also includes the Business Council of Australia, Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Confederation of Danish Industry, Confederation of Finnish Industries and the Federation of German Industries, among others.
Expectations are high that a global climate deal can be secured in Paris, although most commentators expect the sum of national actions to be too weak at this stage to stay within the internationally agreed target of 2 degrees Celsius of warming from pre-industrial levels.
By making each national action plan voluntary, the Paris negotiations aim to overcome the difficulties that beset previous rounds of talks -- in particular the last-minute brinkmanship that has often caused a near breakdown in the negotiations in previous years.
