|  Top multinationals’ carbon pledge
Some of the very corporations once vilified by environmentalists promised on Thursday to reduce by 10 million tonnes annually their collective output of carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming, the World Wildlife Fund announced.
Sony, Nike, IBM, Polaroid, building –materials gains Lafarge and seven other top multinationals said they would fulfill their carbon pledge by no later than 2010.
“If 1,300 more large companies join into this effort, the Kyoto targets for the industrials world would be researched,” the firms - dubbed “Climate Savers” by the WWF – said in a joint statement.
The Kyoto Protocol, due to expire in 2012, is the only international treaty that sets targets for limiting the fossil fuel pollution that causes the greenhouse effect.
The treaty has been crippled since it was abandoned in2001 by US, which accounts for nearly a quarter of the world’s carbon emissions.
The corporate commitment to help save the planet comes amid a flurry of business and government initiatives to slow global warming, and was timed to coincide with the release of a major report by the UN Inter government Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Saturday.
“Fighting climate change can provide business opportunities, and spur innovation and jobs,” said Hans Verolme, Director of the WWF’s Climate Programme.
The Climate Changers companies show that sustainable development” is not in consistent with profit, he said.
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