Op-ed: Corporations Have an Increasing Role in Addressing Climate Change

Donald J. Wuebbles

The climate, the long-term trends in weather, has a large impact on our lives. We humans have basic needs, including clean air, fresh water, food, and shelter, which we have developed complex systems to provide. And these systems have adapted to the consistency of the climate over many decades for the specific area we live in. We can adapt to the temperature and precipitation in our region, and to the past likelihood for extreme events like heat or cold waves, floods, droughts, or severe storms. However, a rapidly changing climate like we are now experiencing, where the intensity of these extreme events is increasing, makes it difficult to adapt quickly enough and, as a result, the likelihood for major disasters is increasing. In addition, the changing climate also is an important factor in the changes occurring in other life on our planet, specifically the concerns about biodiversity.

As a scientist, I study the physics and chemistry affecting the Earth’s atmosphere, including the effects of natural variations and human activities on our climate. The science has become very clear over the last 40 years that human activities, especially our use of fossil fuels in our energy and transportation systems along with land use change, have significantly increased the amounts of certain gases like carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere and that the increasing atmospheric concentrations of these gases is driving major changes in the climate both locally and throughout the world.

Humanity is now at a crossroads where the choices we make now will greatly affect our future. We are nowhere close to seeing the full effect of the changes in climate that will occur. It takes several or more decades to see the full effect of the emissions that have already occurred. The emissions we make this year and in the next few decades will affect our future impacts from the changing climate. Most people on our planet get it and understand that we need take action to reduce emissions and to adapt, to become resilient to the degree we can.

Humanity is making progress at transforming the energy and transportation systems driving much of the changes in climate. But overall, this progress is occurring too slowly. It is clear that purely depending on developing new technology to come into the marketplace to lead the transition and/or volunteer efforts to reduce emissions are insufficient to reach the goals required to avoid the worse impacts of potential future climate changes. Human societies tend to depend on government policies and international agreements to make major transitions. But depending only on governments is fraught with issues as well.

Our governments, in the face of conflicting societal stresses, are largely not moving rapidly enough to prevent much larger changes in climate from occurring. Some countries are making more progress in addressing climate change than others. But for many countries the progress has been occurring more slowly. And near term elections could largely reverse what progress has been made. Leadership to take climate change seriously is occurring at local levels and with some smaller countries, but more leadership is needed.

Cities and various states are making policies for reducing emissions and adaptation, but they are limited in resources and in achieving full success without major national action. Non-government organizations are driving progress but also in limited ways. We need corporations and companies and to step forward – it is to their benefit, both for their organizations and for their employees.

Many corporations are also already playing an important role in reducing emissions and to a lesser degree to adaptation, but can go even further. Their leadership is essential to making this transition to resilience.

Some companies like Earth Knowledge provide analyses and data to help other companies enhance their role in this transition. Their role is important, not only in defining risks and stresses affecting specific locations, but also in providing additional foresight and insights into the effects and impacts from changes in land use, water resources, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and air and water quality.

Taking action by corporations is also important in light of the international corporate-led taskforces that are bring climate financial disclosure and nature financial disclosure into international policies towards making a level playing field in the marketplace and associated stock markets. These efforts bring new incentives for corporations to not only be aware of the stresses and risks within their own company, but also to have increasing awareness of their role in addressing climate change and nature capitol. Taking a leadership role also can have major economic advantages, not only to the corporations but to all of us.

Note: The Earth Knowledge Perspectives (Blog) is provided for general informational purposes only and is not meant to address specific climate conditions, risks, regions or time periods or to provide recommendations for any specific uses, actions or applications. You should not rely on the material or information in this Blog as the basis for any risk assessment, or to make any business, operational or other decision.