The business world has recently started acting on climate change in earnest. Hundreds of the world’s largest companies have agreed to use 100% renewable energy and set targets that commit them to reduce emissions at the pace that science demands. Companies are buying many gigawatts of renewable energy, slashing their own energy use, and innovating to create products that help customers reduce their emissions.
Corporate Action on Climate Change Has to Include Lobbying
To solve the problem, we need government action.
October 15, 2019, Updated October 16, 2019
Jan Stromme/Getty Images
Summary.
The climate crisis is upon us, and there’s no time to wait for voluntary corporate action to tackle the challenge. We need the collective will that government provides. Business needs to, in the words of Environmental Defense Fund president Fred Krupp, “unleash the most powerful tool they have to fight climate change: their political influence.” Using a full-page ad in The New York Times, a group of nonprofits is calling for business to advocate for policies, at all levels of government, that are consistent with what climate science is telling us we need to do, or what they’re calling a “science-based climate policy agenda.” Companies may be more likely to heed this call today for three reasons: they’re seeing very real and massively expensive disruptions to operations, supply chains, and communities due to climate change; it’s harder to hide the disconnect between what they’re saying they’re doing and what they’re actually advocating for; and stakeholders — customers, employees, and communities — are demanding more action.