Big Business Says Addressing Climate Change ‘Rates Very Low on Agenda’
Poll of 500 major firms reveals that only one in 10 regard global warming as a priority
Global warming ranks far down the concerns of the world’s biggest companies, despite world leaders’ hopes that they will pioneer solutions to the impending climate crisis, a startling survey will reveal this week.
Nearly nine in 10 of them do not rate it as a priority, says the study, which canvassed more than 500 big businesses in Britain, the US, Germany, Japan, India and China. Nearly twice as many see climate change as imposing costs on their business as those who believe it presents an opportunity to make money. And the report’s publishers believe that big business will concentrate even less on climate change as the world economy deteriorates.
The survey demolishes George Bush’s insistence that global warming is best addressed through voluntary measures undertaken by business - and does so at the most embarrassing juncture for the embattled President. For this week he is convening a meeting of the world’s largest economies to try to persuade them to agree with him.
The meeting - in Hawaii on Wednesday and Thursday - follows the US’s refusal to accept binding targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, the main cause of global warming, in international negotiations in Bali last month, and is seen as an attempt to develop a less rigorous approach to the crisis.
But the new report shows that even business does not support this, with four out of the five companies surveyed wanting governments to take a central role in tackling climate change.
The survey, carried out by the consulting firm Accenture, found that only 5 per cent of the companies questioned - and not one in China - regarded global warming as their top priority. And only 11 per cent put it in second or third place.
Overall it ranked eighth in business leaders’ concerns, below increasing sales, reducing costs, developing new products and services, competing for talented staff, securing growth in emerging markets, innovation and technology. Although most are taking limited action to reduce their own emissions, almost one in five had done nothing.
Mark Spelman, global head of strategy at Accenture, told The Independent on Sunday at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week: “Climate change is not going to get nearly the same degree of attention here as it would have achieved if the economic outlook were brighter. Whenever there are underlying economic concerns, people will focus on them.”
The report makes it clear that - in contradiction of the Bush administration’s position - business is waiting for governments to take the lead. Nearly half of all the companies worldwide said that climate change was already a major issue for them and three in five expected it to be so within five years. But more than half confessed to be struggling to understand its implications.
Matthew Farrow, head of environment for the Confederation of British Industry, agreed that companies are having a hard time digesting climate change, but added: “The core financials need to be right, but business also needs to understand how climate change will affect the marketplace and realise those business opportunities.”
Some 67 per cent of the businesses surveyed agreed they have a role to play in tackling global warming, but only four out of 10 felt in a position to fulfill it. In China only 14 per cent of those questioned felt in a strong position.
The report concludes: “Businesses clearly are seeking long-term signals about where and how to invest. They are reluctant to make big investments in climate change-related initiatives until the scope of future regulation becomes clearer”.
This point has been made to US and European governments by businesses in their own countries. The European Corporate Leaders on Climate Change group, made up of the heads of major companies - which persuaded both Tony Blair and EU President José Manuel Barroso to make climate change a priority - has called for “a strong and clear policy framework” to enable cuts in emissions.
And the US Climate Action Partnership - which includes the heads of blue-chip companies such as General Electric, DuPont, and Alcoa - has urged Mr Bush to “establish a mandatory emissions pathway” leading to a reduction of up to 30 per cent in US emissions within 15 years.
Yesterday, Mark Kenber, policy director at the Climate Group, said: “These disappointing findings highlight the fact that carbon pricing mechanisms are not yet strong enough for businesses to incorporate climate change risks and opportunities into traditional business strategy”.
©independent.co.uk
Is this too obvious? Businesses and Corporations have a natural tendency towards making profits. They work in the broader frameworks and values established by society and governments. Expecting Business to come up with Climate Change agendas of their own is like expecting them to suddenly change into Social Welfare States. Businesses really have no brain, little heart and zilch courage when it comes do doing anything beyond their primary profit objectives. Just because oil and military companies rule the US of I agenda on foreign policy because it means profit, doesn’t mean that any combination of lion, tin man and scarecrow can combat climate change when given some trinkets and certificates by wizard of Oz.
Businesses will make changes if they’re forced to, but not before, so obviously the worlds’ governments have to step in and take charge. They need to help the businesses out here, and this can best be done through tax incentives and also through utilizing our tax dollars in more useful ways than going to war to benefit a very few businesses at the expense of the rest of us.
Even when disaster happens–businesses look to see how they can profit off it. That is their first concern.
I am sure there are some businesses that look forward to global warming–the only time they wouldnt is if it directly affected them.
I guess consistency with the ongoing shock doctrine of global economics would suggest there’s a pile of money to be made in ignoring prevention and just adapting to climate change as the global disaster builds. Lot’s of new dikes, dams, ferry docks, airports, ports, railyards, condos and new housing to build, lots of cheap refugee labour, more lucrative turf wars over resources, it’s all just a fantastic business opportunity, too good to pass up! So what if 3 billion die, that just means more left for “us” big business types.
KELMER
well eventually it will affect them won’t it? and that time is fast approaching………….
WINDJAMMER
so do you think these ‘big business types’ are immune to mother nature?
The first four comments seem correct to me. I might add that, as in the area of polution, some copanies will be quite willing to do the right thing if there are laws to force their competitors to do the right thing.
I can remember my usually undemonsrative father dancing before the radio describing FDR’s denunciation of “economic royalists” of the 1920’s.
If the American sheeple cannot summon the courage to individually (and eventually collectively) challenge EVERY media/advertising assertion they are subjected to, we’ll be forced to await economic stresses so dire that causes and culprits can no longer be ignored.
The capacity of the middle class electorate to be forever bamboozeled is mind numbing. Unfortunately, virtually no hope can be found in the greed
as displayed by sub-prime housing fraud, unsustainable trade and fiscal deficits, etc, etc, ad nauseum.
Today’s intellectuals of Comptroller General Walker’s stature know that our problems are long standing and structural. Those problems can be solved only by very determined leaders backed by an almost vengeful electorate. That need, unfortunately, is very difficult to fulfi without social unrest similar to that of the Depression.
Nasty but too true in my view.
coco seems correct too but I had started typing my comment before coco’s was posted.
Big business (particularly publicly owned corp. business) is by it’s nature psychopathic. It damages it’s customers in many ways. It lies in advertising and “public relations”‘It charges whatever the traffic can bear and the more necessary the product or service the worse the customer is treated. Look at the drug industry that charges $100.00/month for a prescription that costs more to distribute than to manufacture— pennies in both cases.
The business models developed over the last 25 years by the business schools of the world are responsible for much if this psychopathy —- it has become the norm to lie to the customer and screw him for as much as one can.
This has, fortunately, been just about the only thing that has allowed many small entreprenuers to successfully “dance between the toes of the giant”, and survive.
Perhaps Bush recognizes that real power no longer lies in a toothless government, which is completely in the arms of corporate agenda, and feeding off its milk teats.
The Bush administration fully well know that Corporations have the global scope and financial clout to damage the earth and bribe governments in pursuit of their own interests. Since corporations run the world by default, perhaps they could be persuaded to co-operate together for the common good. All that is needed is some decent powerful persuaders. Perhaps they could cough up the dough to form a world climate change prevention organization, more powerful than current UN and government efforts. Its about time they paid some taxes on profits for reaping the earth. Thats how we will know if they are really serious. Let us see the real money, and the real organization with real sharp teeth.
And will a climate climate change organization with real sharp teeth , bite the teats that feed it?
How can ANY rational thinking person, ignore the damning effects of global warming, whether they are CEOs of big business, presidents, or school bus drivers and high school students?
How on Earth, do any reasonable people, ignore over 2,500 world re-nowned scientists, who have warned us repeatedly, that unless humanity takes swift and positive action to reduce the use of fossil fuels, we are doomed and time is running out. Global warming is not a “ho-hum” issue, it’s as serious as a massive heart attack.
I understnd how bean counters and CEOs have their bottom lines and share holders to worry about. I understand greed and love of money. I do NOT and cannot understand, how people who have the power to fight this proven global warming issue, will allow profit motives, to overcome plain common sense. This is the only world we and our children have to live on, and I’m positive they are all aware of that.
I do understand that if governments would assist with funding, and they should, that big businees could have clean energy on line in short order, and they could make a nice profit doing so. This is a situation where governments must get in on the act, work with big business and do so quickly.
What good is a habitable Earth if you can’t turn an obscene profit on it?
As correctly pointed out in prior posts, in a free market based economy, the role of the enterprise is to operate at a profit. If it deviates from this role, it does so at its great peril.
Society, through its government, dictates the rules of the free market. If we, as a society, want to address global warming, it is up to the society to redefine the rules of the market. One way it can do this is by fiat: the CAFE standards are an example of this. The other, and far more effective, way to do it is by changing the pricing mechanisms.
The EU has adopted an international cap and trade system for CO2 emissions as a modification to the pricing mechanisms. This has met with very limited success and will hopefully improve with time.
Another, and IMHO, superior modification to the market place is a carbon tax. In addition to being somewhat more resistant to governmental corruption, it gives a much clearer signal for industry to work and plan with.
It is not up to business to counteract global warming. Several electric utilities are currently planning to expand their nuclear power fleets. Likewise, many utilities have been installing wind generation facilities. Generally they are not doing this to be good citizens and reduce their carbon footprint. They are doing it because they need additional production capacity, they anticipate some form of carbon taxation and they wish to continue to operate profitably.
If we in the US, as a society, want to address global warming, we should petition our government to impose carbon taxation. (After the presidential inauguration there might even be a chance that something will pass and be signed.)
Bill
The lack of responsibilty and denial of reality of corporations is unbelievable. They assume that all they have to do is concentrate on short-term profits. If they have problems, governments will bail them out with money from taxpayers (like us).
From their point of view, climate change is something that will happen gradually. Sea levels will rise a centimeter a year and temperatures will maybe go up a degree. They refuse to see, that along with gradual changes, sudden ones will occur. There are large mountains of ice that are not going to drip themselves to death. There are methane deposits that will suddenly burst into the air.
I recently found a book at the library on climate change entitled “With Speed and Violence” detailing how quickly everything will change. If you have a chance, read it.
How can we reach people? Individuals can do a little (conserve, recycle, write letter) but we need action from the highest level of government and corporations. How do we get it?
Nothing will happen on the scale needed untill a “Pearl Harbor” type environmental crisis takes place. Prepare for the worst on an individual basis and hope you survive to raise the Phoenix from the ashes. After 40 years of this struggle, there is still no light at the end of this tunnel. The train is going down the track full throtle still, even though some of us know the bridge is out. As I remind people the predictions of the 70s and 80s are coming to pass, they still say so what, life is good… It breaks my heart, but this is the reality we must overcome. I think we went past the point of no return about 7 years ago. This will be the real Bush/Conservative/Corporate legacy. No, I am not a religious dooms sayer, I just know most people won’t change if they think they don’t have to, this article provides that fact… be prepared for the worst before it will ever get better.
AHO!
Despair has made it difficult for the poor to care about climate change. Who cares about next year when you are hungry now? They know they are going to die. If they die sooner rather than later they have been spared that much hard labor.
The rich suffer from ennui and meaninglessness. They don’t care. The important thing is to die with the most toys. That’s how you tell who won.
When Buddha said all life is suffering he meant all human life. I don’t want to see the death throes that are coming but when it’s all over the total suffering on this planet will be reduced exponentially.
Every corporation, even those owned by other corporations, are eventually owned by human beings. Humans are the ones who suffer and love, not “corporations”.
Some people fear their own deaths because their lives were pretty cruel and Scroogelike, because they didn’t help anyone else, so they seek redemption. Some follow Christianity, some fake it, some follow Buddhism. Some will always be rotten and die and then their money will go to their kids, who might be more caring.
If you want to change the corporations, these are the owners. Most of them don’t know what their money is doing.
KEM: YOU have a heart, and you know what LOVE is. But a lot of these greed-oriented business types who COULD make changes really do NOT FEEL. Can you imagine many CEOS and executive boards filled with clones of Ebineezer Scrooge? There IS a type of person that cares not for humanity, who does not look beyond his own comfort zone. Unfortunately it is precisely this type of individual that is readily able to CLIMB over others to pursue their love of money, and they are called ambitious; and our media now celebrates wealth as a great attribute and achievement. Ironic isn’t it, that these creeps who trade funds and never do an HONEST day’s WORK in their lives can make billions in trades. This is the paradigm that has been rendered unto MAMMON, with MARS as its guardian. Armies fight to squander wealth and steal if from neighboring tribes, most of the booty profits only the few who appear to have least to lose. But then there is karma… the cosmic equal opportunity employer. There IS justice on a universal scale. The tough part is not necessarily bearing that fact witness from the standpoint of a mortal lifetime.
People cannot stop global warming. This is delusions of grandeur. Global warming is unrelated to humans and well beyond their control. What are you going to say when the warming stops and nothing so terrible happens?
What do we expect? The CEOs and Big Corp cut off their feet? And, those of you above bemoan the fact the people have to fight harder, what to the people (and investers) do, when our corporate Supreme Court recently ruled against legal remedies sought by investors for the malfeasance of corporate directors, and their financial backers, for the investors’ losses? Let them eat cake.
The ~LIZARD~ returns.
Here is a fella folks, who does not believe humanity is responsible for the serious global warming, which we now either deal with, or watch the sea levels rise and the methane gas bloom up from the depths of the oceans and kill almost every living thing on the planet. __ I say fella, because I cannot imagine a female using such a code name as Lizard.
Although the Lizard has been offered several links on prior articles on the subject, concerning global warming and the ways and whys it has developed so quickly since humanity began the industrial age some 225 years ago, he still posts his denials, stating he is a “scientist” and claims global warming, acidity of the oceans and pollution of our atmosphere with carbon dioxide, is a natural process and the minor global warming is only due to the sun beams and Mother Nature doing her normal thing.
We can Google Arctic methane gas and read the several articles offered.
Hi Billy. I don’t agree with your comment that Corporations are not responible for working and spending money to develop clean energy. It is the sloppy methods in which corporations have conducted business, that have created much of the most serious problems we have with a polluted atmosphere.
They also fight tooth and nail to prevent the so called enviromentalists, from having laws passed, which would eleminate much of the pollution. Then when a CEO of a major oil company for example, earns several billion a year and pays less income tax than his secretary, they certainly have enough funds to put into programs that would be beneficial to all of humanity and perhaps stop the disasters which global warming is creating.
What benefit does any corporation garner, if their end product or plant’s operational methods, eventually kill everything on the planet? Actually, the CEOs and board members of many giant corporations, should be arrested, tried, convicted and placed in jail. __ Forever. They are guilty, that is self evident, __ so are any who speak out in their support.
Don’t forget, Exxon hired “scientists” ones like the Lizard, to de-bunk the global warming issue. They paid shills $10,000 or more to write contradictious opinions. That alone has created serious and unnecessary arguments and has been a major stumbling block for any major work being initiated to correct the problem. As ~Siouxrose~ so aptly stated here, those types are lower than whale shit, scum.
KEM and folks:
The business people know what they are doing is fucked. They just bet (correctly in my opinion) that they will be better off than the average joe when the climate dodo hits the reality fan. They can see the future as well or better than we can, and we know what is going to happen so they do too. They just bet that with their money, they will be able to survive better longer than the poor. That is all.
RuthK: How can we reach people? Individuals can do a little (conserve, recycle, write letter) but we need action from the highest level of government and corporations. How do we get it?
It has to be grass roots. Spread the word person to person. Take individual action, shift exchange/association to the local level. “Be the change you want to see”. We don’t want “dear leader” to assume our responsibilities. “Dear leader” is simply not dependable, and it wouldn’t be right anyway.
I wonder how much different the survey would have been if insurance, agribusiness and land management companies were the only ones surveyed. Insurance companies have been following global warming for at least a decade and a half to my knowledge. Think killer heat waves, drastic droughts, crop failures. A lot of money rides on that. A lot of power.
The same companies that have been funding global warming denial have also been attacking environmental medicine, fighting for the continued use of dangerous chemicals, and on infinitum.
Whether or not we can prevent cataclysmic damage to our planet, we have to try. As individuals, as communities, as societies, nations and as the human race.
Global Warming Conference 9 am-9 pm Wed, 9-3 TH
SF State University, Jack Adams Hall in Chavez Student Union
1600 Holloway Avenue , San Francisco
For more information please call 415.405.0326
FREE | http://bss.sfsu.edu/envstudies/climate.html
(take M MUNI Metro or call (415) 673-MUNI for more transit options
PaulK
IMO you are correct: shareholders own the corps and most dont know where their money is being spent; their money in most corps is currently diminishing due to the stock xchanges’ current downward trend.
My only hope is that businesses that cause the most damage die soon. Practically though, I guess due to demand for oil being higher as supply diminishes over time, they will benefit the most.
Kem,
Your points are well taken.
However, if the CEO pays less tax than his secretary, that is our fault, not his (unless it is by fraud). Our elected officials write the tax laws and the CEO, presumably, follows them to his best advantage. I don’t make the salary of a CEO but I game the tax laws as best I can.
Likewise with environmental laws: Our government writes the laws and (again presumably without breaking them) corporations operate within those laws. Several utilities operate coal fired power plants with no pollution controls. They do this legally because the plants were grandfathered in. This is not the utilities fault-our elected officials have failed to change the law to sunset these grandfathered plants.
You are, of course, correct that many corporations practice disinformation. The White House does not have a monopoly on lying to the public.
Regards,
Bill
If they didn’t care about exterminating Native peoples or enslaving Africans (each by the millions), why would they care about the planet that gives them life every day? Businessmen live in a delusionary mental world where all that matters is money, profit and power—and like any delusionary who insists that his lies are reality, they are headed for a fall, and they don’t care whether they take the entire world’s population with them. After all (they fantasize), by then they’ll be able to buy a rocket ship and get away from the dying planet; and then? The next frontier to be raped! Isn’t it glorious, the march of profit and progress?
lizard,
You’re entitled to believe that humans have nothing to do with climate change. You’re entitled to believe anything, and I hope the rejoinders posted in opposition to your opinions (which are different from beliefs, I’d like to point out) make you re-think things, yet don’t convince you to believe something you don’t fully agree with. In that light, I’d like to share a logical argument with you that you might appreciate. The question of whether or not humans are creating climate change may not be relevant at all, I’ll grant that in your favor. But the response to the weighty body of evidence that our climate is indeed changing is where the debate should be. Spend ten minutes watching this science teacher lay out his argument.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDsIFspVzfI
Now, for the rest of us, do you remember the big divestiture movement that helped South Africa decide to abandon apartheid? Shareholders do have power. And universities who invest in corporations can be coerced. Municipalities who invest in corporations can be coerced. Your employer can be coerced into green investments. Your bank. Your grocery store. The politician who you’re going to give your vote to has also been receiving money from corporations: have they refused donations from major offenders?
CEOs can be coerced into modifying their agendas. This is nothing new, but amidst all the crap that’s going on in the world, we must not forget that individuals’ aggregate power is still a force that can make big changes.
But of course, you all already knew that! I’m preaching to the choir, but my message is this: convince your neighbor.
I read an interesting interview with the CEO of one of the big home-building firms. As a sociopath, he made a point of pointing out that he always offered clients all the latest energy-efficiency options for their new homes. He’d explain the technology, the cost, and how the energy savings would pay off the extra cost in 3-5 years, or quicker in the unlikely event that energy costs should rise. But never, he claimed, would the eventual purchaser go for these upgrades. They always brushed it off as a scam, or were more concerned with getting maximum square footage for their money.
I bet the producers and consumers would still prefer lead in their paint and gasoline, cars without catalytic converters, smoking in public, etc. Before the neo-con revolution, the government had the wacky idea that they would protect us from predation and toxic greed. Yes, they actually outlawed all that destructive stuff at one point, evidence that they were at least partly on the side of humanity. Now that the government has been turned into an engine of maximizing profits, there is no force acting opposite to the direction of destruction.
Unfortunately, there is currently no way to quantify how much a corporation pollutes, exploits or wastes in their profit/loss statements unless they’re hauled into court. Even then, there is little chance a corporate will pay up (Exxon still has yet to pay a penny on their environmental damage to Prince William Sound).
As Big_Money says, the CEOs (I’d say the boards of directors, too) are sociopaths with one thing on their mind - profit at any cost.
As Fidel Castro pointed out in 2001;
“Today, our species has acquired sufficient knowledge, ethical values and scientific resources to advance toward a new historical stage of genuine justice and humanism. Nothing in the existing economic and political order
is of service to humanity. It cannot be sustained. It has to be changed. It is enough to recall that we are now six billion inhabitants, 80% of whom are poor. Centuries-old diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and other
equally mortal illnesses have not been overcome in the Third World nations;
new epidemics like AIDS are threatening to extinguish entire populations, while the rich nations are investing fabulous sums in military spending and luxuries, and every day a voracious plague of speculators are exchanging currencies, stocks and other real or fictitious assets valued at trillions
of dollars. Nature has been destroyed, the climate is visibly changing, water for human consumption is contaminated and insufficient, the oceans’
source of food for humans is being exhausted, nonrenewable and vital resources are being squandered on luxuries and vanities.”
In sort, capitalism is what stands between the future of life and civilization or barbarism and extinction.
I am sure these business ‘leaders’ will see things differently when their financial bottom lines start to tank! And these a’holes are leading our lives? Scary.
Jaded Prole - “In sort, capitalism is what stands between the future of life and civilization or barbarism and extinction.”
I’m inclined to disagree. Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Religion, Mercantilism - and more - are the building blocks of civilization and society. Each has something vital for every human on the planet. “Lawlessness and Abuse of Power” is what can transform any of these things into a force of mass destruction. You can get rid of all those things - throwing out the baby with the bathwater - and Lawlessness and Abuse of Power will continue to destroy. If you can get rid of Lawlessness and Abuse of Power, you’ll need all those things in order to make the trip back to a humane society.
At least, that’s my opinion.
The priority of fiscal growth and profit seeking and the power of corporations to enforce it and crush anything that stands in it’s way result in “Lawlessness and Abuse of Power.” The mechanics of capitalism prevent realistic solutions to the environmental crisis we face.
Yup. And the mechanisms of government, as envisioned by the people who set it up, has been stripped and sent to the dump and replaced with the coal-fired mechanisms of blind sociopathic greed.
Hi Billy, I’ll write this quick, because by tomorrow this thread will be buried in the deep and hidden archives.
I agree with you that the CEOs of greedy mega corporations and big business, usually follow the rules enacted by the government. Of course most of us realize, that in our country at least, big business RULES the government and therefore the CEOs are actually making the rules to suit themselves.
We Americans truly have a Fascist form of govrnment now, as President Roosevelt warned us we would have, IF we the people allowed it to happen.__ It’s happened, sort of snuck up on us.
Anyway, big busiess makes the rules via their “lobbyists” in Washington DC, and sadly, John Edwards is the only candidate who will fight that. He also is the only one who will promote clean energy. He also is getting his ass kicked. Therefore, don’t any expect anything to change. Tell your kids and grandkids that you are very sorry. For indeed we are. ___ Stupid too.
Article: “.. this week [Bush] is convening a meeting of the world’s largest economies to try to persuade them to agree [with voluntary limitations in Greenhouse Gases]. The meeting - in Hawaii…”
I’m glad they’re meeting in Hawaii NOW.
In a few years, Waikiki is going to be underwater and it won’t be fit for discussing the world’s business then…
KEM PATRICK - JADED PROLE
if you haven’t already have a look at this: www.massextinction.net
Holy smoke ~COCO~, how in heck did you manage to put a picture of me in that link? The forth one down. Next time ask for permission, OKay?
How ya doin kid?
KEM PATRICK
ooooooooh what a handsome boy!!! i’m doing ok thanks. if you have the time try to listen to david ulansey’s talk. it’s really good. i’ll be back tomorrow……….it’s bed time here now.
KEM p.s.
that’s if the asteroid 2007 TU24 hasn’t crashed into us…………
Good speech Mr. KEM, I am busy these days with interviews I am glad I caught your words before you I dropped off the table. You must spend a lot of time talking with the unconverted greed merchants, that is what the whole thing is about anyway.
The words of James Carvel ring in my ears, “Its about the economy stupid” that is the points I cover in my film. The story above, simply amplifies that point. Anything will be scrificed for your 401ks, anything at all and the lizards will be left they have a good survival rate in deserts.Good speech Mr. KEM, I am busy these days with interviews I am glad I caught your words before you I dropped off the table. You must spend a lot of time talking with the unconverted greed merchants, that is what the whole thing is about anyway.