Finding scapegoats for global warming is becoming harder as more companies call for mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions and climate-friendly government policies. Are these companies committed to slowing climate change, or is it just make-believe and so-called greenwashing?
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A Business Alliance against Climate ChangeThe Global Roundtable on Climate Change is one among a number of initiatives that gather businesses, scientists, and activists. The coalition calls for a post-Kyoto Protocol framework for clean energy and climate change action |
The news read like a hoax: In January 2007, nine heads of major corporations like BP, the aluminum maker Alcoa, and the utilities company Duke Energy urged U.S. President George W. Bush to support mandatory reductions in climate-changing pollution and to establish concrete reduction targets – demands their peers had long opposed.
Insurers like Swiss Re, IAG, or Allianz had been calling for government action to fight global warming for years. Their interventions seem to make sense, even from a business perspective: Rising global temperatures will result in more natural disasters, more claims, and less profits. But recently, these usual suspects were joined by other companies, mainly from the U.S., some of which are among the world’s biggest CO2 emitters.
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The Golden State going GreenBritish Prime Minister Tony Blair (right) and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (center) are supporting strict caps on carbon dioxide emissions (Photo: Climate Group) |
A coalition of the willing?
In February, some 85 business heavyweights gathered at the Global Roundtable on Climate Change, a post-Kyoto Protocol framework for clean energy and climate change action organized by Jeffrey Sachs from the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Among the companies were Air France, chemical companies DuPont and BASF, and the world’s biggest retail chain, Wal-Mart.
Similar business-led initiatives have emerged elsewhere. German companies recently inaugurated a group called “2° - German Businesses for Climate Protection.” Utilities Vattenfall and EnBW joined Deutsche Telekom, Allianz and others to support German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s bid for a post-Kyoto scheme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Their aim is to contain global warming to a maximum rise of two degrees.
Duke Energy, a major energy supplier that operates coal, nuclear, and gas power plants, surprised the energy sector by demanding mandatory carbon caps for an industry that, according to the International Energy Agency, produces more than 40 percent of all global carbon dioxide emissions. Even influential lobby groups like the US Chamber of Commerce or the U.S. National Association of Manufacturers reject such limits. They say the energy industry still has to invest billions of dollars to meet the growing U.S. demand for energy.
So why do executives from major polluters like Duke Energy or BP now call for laws and restrictions that would essentially increase prices for their commodities and impact their business? Motivations are manifold, but the bottom-line might well be: they can’t avoid it anyway.
The most striking example for this trend comes from the U.S. While its federal government still opposes the idea of mandatory carbon caps and prices for CO2 emissions, individual states are going ahead with climate-friendly initiatives of their own In 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from utilities, refineries and manufacturing plants to 1990 levels by 2020. Other states like Massachusetts or North Carolina have similar policies in place.
