COP15 Update: Triple Helix of Climate Solutions

Karl-ErikGrevendahlOver the next two weeks, Sea Change Radio Climate Correspondent Cimbria Badenhausen will file updates from the UN Climate Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen, some of which will also appear on CSRwire.  Just before COP15 commenced, Badenhausen chatted with Karl-Erik Grevendahl, Advisor for Sustainable Business Development at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Southern Sweden.  The two talked about Copenhagen’s “twin” city, Malmo, Sweden, and also about the notion of a “Triple Helix” entwining government, academia, and business in climate solutions.  Listen to excerpts from the conversation, and read the brief below or on the CSRLive Commentary section of CSRwire.

Drama surrounds today’s commencement of the UN Climate Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen.  The region is buzzing from Friday’s news of US President Barack Obama’s shift to attend the final days of negotiations, when a global climate deal is most likely to be brokered.  The “ClimateGate” debate still hums across the Web over whether the emails hacked from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in mid-November put the “nail in the coffin” of climate science, or simply show how little dirt the denial camp could dig up to discredit climate science.  And companies like GE and Siemans are clamoring to attend the oversubscribed Copenhagen Business Day, organized by the World Business Council on Sustainable Development and International Chamber of Commerce, to weigh in on the climate talks.

These three – government, academia, and business – form a “triple helix” of actors who play key roles in helping solve the climate crisis, according to Karl-Erik Grevendahl, Advisor for Sustainable Business Development at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Southern Sweden.  “If governments work by themselves, they can achieve a lot of things — the same goes for universities and companies.  But when they work together, they can achieve much higher goals than they do alone,” Grevendahl told Sea Change Radio Climate Correspondent Cimbria Badenhausen in Malmo, Sweden, the “twin” city of Copenhagen that is bracing for four thousand visitors spilling across the Oresund Bridge.  Grevendahl, who helped organize a climate conference in Lund focused on this triple helix the weekend before the Copenhagen Conference, urges COP15 participants to leverage these interconnections toward more significant outcomes from the climate talks.

Thanks to our COP15 Series Sponsor The Cloud Institute, as well as financial support from The ManKind Project and the Institute for Nature and Leadership, as well as other individuals.

About Bill Baue

Bill Baue is Co-Director of Sea Change Media, a non-profit that makes connections in the shift to social, environmental, and economic sustainability. He co-hosts/produces Sea Change Radio, a nationally syndicated show that podcasts globally.