Big businesses' climate meeting

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Major UK companies such as BT, Tesco and BA are to meet to collaborate on tackling climate change.

The taskforce will discuss ways in which they can help the environment.

BBC business editor Robert Peston says some of Britain's biggest companies are now admitting climate changes is real, dangerous and partly their fault.

The new taskforce, set up under the umbrella of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), is expected to look at carbon taxes and offsetting.

Green business 'opportunity'

Our business editor said it will also look at whether money can be made out of potential environmental legislation.

He said it was not just a defensive move to ward off new taxes and regulations, but proof that big business saw going green, increasingly, as an opportunity.

This week Tory leader David Cameron said: "You want businesses to be competing with each other for actually who can have the best green reputation, who can get their energy bills down the most and be the most competitive."

And new CBI president Martin Broughton said earlier this month governments should "back market-driven mechanisms" such as carbon trading to combat the increasing threat of climate change.