by Terry Catchpole, Founder and CEO of The Catchpole Corporation
The Catchpole Corporation consults with firms on their executive visibility initiatives in regard
to corporate citizenship.
The United Nations Conference on Climate Change this December in Copenhagen is likely to bring to light the good, the bad, and the ugly for US companies, including those in the Boston area.
The “good” will be for companies whose climate-impact and other sustainability practices measure up well on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and other measurements. The “bad“ will be for companies that fall a bit short on these indices, but not demonstrably so. The “ugly” will be those who not only fall short, but whose executives publicly question the received wisdom regarding climate change, global warming, and other shibboleths, and otherwise run afoul of the more vocal factions of environmental activism.
Make no mistake: The UN Conference will afford a veritable global stage for environmental activists of all stripes and businesses worldwide will be in the crosshairs. If the conference attendees fulfill their stated mission, the outcome will be a sweeping global treaty establishing ambitious goals regarding carbon emissions and greenhouse gas production. The pressure will then fall on the world’s developed nations to endorse the treaty.
We have seen much of this before, of course, when what is formally known as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) passed the Kyoto Protocols in 1997, setting out a specific timeline for signatory countries to achieve ambitious goals regarding global warming. The United States and China, among others, refused to endorse the Protocols, claiming that the penalties proposed fell unfairly on developed nations that, by definition, produced a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gases.
But that was then. Since 1997, citizens of the US and other developed countries have developed a keen appreciation of risks to the climate and other Inconvenient Truths, and sentiment favoring support of an aggressive new global treaty is expected to be considerable. Add to that the fact that President Obama, in his overriding policy ambition to be the non-Bush, is pushing Congress to pass dramatic new carbon emissions standards, while his Administration is lobbying the Chinese government to join the US in supporting new carbon policies. If these efforts are successful, it would follow that the Obama Administration would likely support a new treaty written by the UN conference delegates and ultimately affecting the sustainability practices of virtually every mid-sized to enterprise scale business in the world.
Environmental activists, however, are not expected to sit around and hope for the best. Among their tactics is expected to be pressure put on US businesses to urge their congressional representatives to support the President’s climate control legislation; and for businesses to pressure their peers and colleagues to do likewise. Whatever the specific tactics, the pressure will be intense, sometimes good, sometimes bad, and sometimes downright ugly.
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