About GROCC

The Global Roundtable on Climate Change brings together high-level, critical stakeholders from all regions of the world — including senior executives from the private sector and leaders of international governmental and non-governmental organizations — to discuss and explore areas of potential consensus regarding core scientific, technological, and economic issues critical to shaping sound public policies on climate change.

The Roundtable has five over-arching objectives:

To explore the potential for developing an improved global consensus on core scientific, technological, economic and policy issues related to climate change—one that simultaneously considers the need to mitigate the very significant risks posed by anthropogenic climate change and the need for economic growth and human development around the world;
To explore technological and policy options for mitigating climate change while meeting global energy needs;
To champion demonstration projects that test and scale sustainable energy technologies and other activities and policies that address climate change;
To provide a unique forum for discussion, analysis and exchange of ideas among businesses from all economic sectors and all parts of the world, international institutions, non-governmental organizations, and leading academic experts; and
To help catalyze new initiatives and interactions among Roundtable participants that address climate change mitigation and adaptation.

At its meetings, which began in 2005 and will continue through 2009, the Roundtable engages in detailed, science-based, non-confrontational discussion and analysis in order to work through difficult problems and explore potential areas of consensus that could have broad and unprecedented buy-in. Such a structured deliberative process among leaders from business, government, academia and civil society has proven to be a highly effective means for discussing possible solutions to complex problems. Over the past decade, Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Earth Institute and Chair of the Roundtable, has found great benefits in this approach in his work on commissions and consensus-building efforts with the World Health Organization and the United Nations Secretary-General. The Roundtable is made possible by a generous grant from the Lenfest Foundation.

The Roundtable provides an extraordinary opportunity for stakeholder to stakeholder discussion of complex issues related to climate change in a relaxed, private, productive and information-driven environment. Roundtable participants are drawn from all regions of the world and every major economic sector, including industry manufacturing, transportation, non-renewable resources, renewable resources, energy, finance, insurance, health, food and agriculture. Participants also include leading figures from international organizations, national and local governments, academia, and non-governmental organizations. Participation in the Roundtable is by invitation only.

The Global Roundtable on Climate Change is a forum for good-faith information exchange, mutual learning, consensus building, and problem solving. Participants possess many different views on a broad variety of issues. This diversity represents a strength but it also requires emphasizing that participation in Roundtable does not in itself imply support by a particular company, institution or individual for each Joint Statement, demonstration project, conference sponsorship, press release, quotation, or other activity associated with the Roundtable. Only those companies, institutions and individuals expressly listed in connection with a particular statement or activity can be considered to support it and in no case can such endorsement be considered legally binding in any way.