The United Nations has launched a unique partnership with the US
city of San Francisco, the Bay Area Council and a wide array of
businesses in the region to combat global warming.

The world body hopes that it would provide a model that businesses and cities across the world could follow.

The
initiative, the Principles on Climate Leadership, will give businesses
in the area a framework to address climate change as well as a forum to
share best practices to reduce greenhouse gases through, for example,
setting company-wide emission reduction goals or providing
transportation alternatives for employees.

It will also create a
model for climate action in the commercial and public sectors that the
UN Global Compact will seek to place in companies and cities around the
world. The Compact is an initiative started in 1999 to advance good
corporate citizenship and responsible globalization.

More than 20
companies from a variety of sectors including Gap Inc, Google and
Shaklee officially endorsed the Principles and also announced the
setting up Business Council on Climate Change (BC3) at a special event
in San Francisco, the city that gave birth to the UN with the signing
of the Charter in 1945.