US Secretary of State John Kerry has also demanded that businesses should set ambitious goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions over the coming decades, before this year's Paris Climate Summit. Kerry was speaking using video link to executives, who were gathered for the Business & Climate Summit in Paris. He said that the energy and climate markets were 'the solution to climate change'.

He said that the private sector needs to encourage governments across the world in order to set ambitious emissions targets and to set goals of their own. According to him, the ambitions should be like the ones by companies that have set targets of using 100% renewable energy by 2020.

According to a report by Thomson Reuters that was produced yesterday, from 2010 to 2013, greenhouse gas emissions increased by 1.3% from 32 global energy companies in the face of a UN report suggesting emissions should have decreased by 4.2% over the period.

It was a two-day summit, attended by 2,000 business leaders; it drew attention of several blue chip executives, who jointly demanded that policy makers should put a price on carbon and leverage public funds and private sector capital should increase investment in low carbon infrastructure.

According to Paul Polman, chief executive of Unilever, companies that have already begun the transition to low carbon can already see benefits. He added, "To go further, we need a strong international climate agreement that sends a clear and credible signal to businesses that low-carbon policies will endure".

As per Glencore chairman Tony Hayward, a price on carbon should not be introduced before elimination of fossil fuel subsidies.