The Tällberg process played a catalyzing role in the following processes. Any one of these consequential actions have in them the seeds and roots for transformative systems changes. Business, Human Rights, Energy, Environment and Climate, Governance.
This is not to say that Tällberg can be given the sole credit for any of the far reaching consequences. But to be sure Tällberg has had a real and valid role in bringing together the right people at the right time and asking the right questions in the right context – in the interest of the whole.
1998 Tällberg Workshop: The UN Global Compact
The UN Global Compact is a voluntary organization comprised of businesses of all sizes, labor unions and NGOs that is based upon 10 principles on human rights, labor, environment and corruption.
At the 1998 Tällberg Workshop – Human Rights and the Free Market - Is the Business of Human Rights also the Business of Business? – Hans Corell, then chief legal officer and Under Secretary General of the UN, gave a talk entitled “The meaning and role of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” in which he proffered the notion of setting standards for human rights in business:
“How high should the human rights standard be set? … When is it appropriate to make business conditional upon a better human rights record? And when it is appropriate to engage in business in spite of a doubtful human rights record and instead try to encourage observance of these rights by setting a good example? Maybe these are questions that we could discuss at this Workshop.”
Indeed, the questions were taken up and in the discussions the seeds were planted for what became Kofi Annan’s (Tällberg ’96, ’08) principal initiative to bring business more closely in alignment with the work of the UN – the business of global development. The Global Compact was launched in 1999.
2005 Tällberg Forum: Global Energy Assessment IIASA
The Global Energy Assessment (GEA) is a major initiative, established by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and its partnering organizations, to help decision makers address the challenges of providing energy services for sustainable development. IIASA is the leading systems organization in the world, created by President Johnson to give scientists on either side of the Cold War the opportunity to collaborate.
The 2005 Forum brought together leaders to discuss the future of energy that revealed the glaring need for a global assessment. The idea for IIASA’s GEA was germinated. The GEA was born in December 2005 and launched in 2007. At the 2005 Forum were two of the GEA organizers and founders: Ged Davis (then, World Economic Forum) and Dr. Irene Freudenschuss-Reichl (Foreign Ministry of Austria). Other founding organizers include Tällberg alumni Prof. José Goldemberg (former Secretary of the Environment, State of Sao Paulo), Prof. Thomas B. Johansson (University of Lund). Luis Gomez-Echeverri is the head of the Secretariat. Davis and Goldemberg are the Council Presidents.
2006 Tällberg Forum: World Environment Office Morgan Stanley
After the 2006 Forum, NASA GISS director Dr. James Hansen spoke about climate. Climate emerged from the 2006 Forum as a profoundly urgent issue. After the Forum Jim Butcher lobbied for a World Environment Office at Morgan Stanley and became its director. This office then began looking at the confluence of energy and climate from a banking perspective.
2007 Tällberg Forum: The Carbon Principles
The Carbon Principles were established by three major US Banks in February 2008. They state that before any new power plants, especially coal, can be financed, due diligence requires examining each case in the context of new emissions regulations that will likely be forthcoming within the next five years.
Both James Hansen and Jim Butcher returned to the 2007 Forum. Hansen’s emphasis was blunt: a moratorium on new coal fired power plants without carbon capture and sequestration (which does not yet exist in scalable form) was absolutely necessary.
Butcher and his World Environment Office had been exploring ways to address the climate and fossil fuel energy issues, stemming from coal project in Texas in early 2007. Hansen’s declaration helped crystalize and focus this effort into the Carbon Principles, effectively choking off financing for new coal plants.
2008 Tällberg Forum: The 350 movement
350 ppm CO2 is the safe limit for atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, according to James Hansen. In 2008 the worldwide average level stood at 385, up 2.2 ppm from last year. Today it is 391 ppm.
As part of the 2008 Forum week, the Tällberg Foundation and 200 signatories sent a message to the world on June 24, the 20th anniversary of Hansen’s global warming testimony before Congress, via a full page ad in the global edition of the Financial Times, the International Herald Tribune and the New York Times, reaching 10 million readers and helped to catapult Bill McKibben’s 350.org, which launched that week. As reported by Worldwatch in DC, who hosted a session for James Hansen on Capitol Hill that day, attended by leading American politicians, the Tällberg 350 ad “was the buzz of the room. Who is Tällberg?”
350.org has since staged the world’s two largest public action days in history. On October 24, 2009 there were 5,500 events in 182 countries leading up to Copenhagen. This year, after consultation with Tällbeerg Foundation, 350.org shifted its emphasis from the treaty to direct action, “Get to Work,” complementing and extending Tällberg’s Rework The World forum, with 7500 events in 186 countries on October 10, 2010.
The 350 target has become a global reference point, cited by the EU Commission’s climate report, and is referenced in the final Copenhagen document that allowed for the possibility that the agreed upon +2°C limit may need to be revised to +1.5°C–the level demanded by a return to 350 ppm this century.
350 ppm CO2 is also one of potentially nine ecological boundary conditions. At the 2008 Forum, the first workshops on the Planetary Boundaries took place. This groundbreaking scientific area of study, published in Nature, August 2009, stemmed from Tällberg Foundation research begun after the 2005 Forum on “ecological boundaries” and further developed in 2006-7 into inquiries of “boundary conditions,” which led to cooperation with the Stockholm Environment Institute.
2009 Tällberg Forum: The Global Observatory, GO
At the 2009 Forum, much concern was expressed regarding the effectiveness of the climate negotiations to take place in Copenhagen in December 2009. Will the negotiators have access to the latest scientific data? Will the negotiators feel the appropriate from not only lobby groups, but from people in their home countries who really would like to see a powerful deal?
José Maria Figueres Olsen, former President of Costa Rica, proposed the idea to bring the tent from the Tällberg Forum to Copenhagen and create a hub for communication between scientists, negotiators and the public around the world. This was the starting point for the “Global Observatory.”
2010 The Green Social Impact Bond (in progress)
The Tällberg Foundation is working with Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) to provide 200,000 poor women living in India, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Nepal with access to safe, economical and environmentally friendly cook stoves and solar lights. Tällberg and SEWA will work with leading manufacturers to ensure that the design of the cook stoves and solar lights meet the specific needs of the women. Access to these 200,000 women will be via SEWA’s existing rural distribution network. Integral to the project will be the training and employment of 2,500 young people.
Sales of the cook stoves and solar lights will take place over three years. SEWA will provide an interest-free loan to each woman to enable her to repay the cost of the item in equal installments over two years.
The project will be financed through the sale of carbon credits, generated by the reduced carbon emissions associated with the project, and the issuing of a Green Energy Bond.