THE VINE DECEMBER 10, 2010
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
Cancún, Mexico—Another year, another round of U.N. climate talks. This year's discussions in Cancún are likely to end much as last year's haggling in Copenhagen did—without a firm global treaty to stop drastic climate change. But the stalemate has led to an intriguing side development: Large, multinational corporations are starting to play an outsized role in the negotiations. If world leaders can't agree on how best to cut carbon emissions (and, so far, it's not clear they can), then the world's CEOs may start taking the lead. But is that really a positive development?
Consider some examples: On the very first day of the Cancún talks, the Consumer Goods Forum, a coalition of more than 400 of the world's largest manufacturers and retailers, pledged to use its market might to help stop deforestation by 2020. The forum also pledged to phase out the use of hydrofluorocarbons—refrigeration gases that are thousands of times more potent than CO2—by 2015. This week, Wal-Mart came out in support of a major global forest-preservation initiative, REDD, and has announced plans to expand its sustainable palm oil policy. To top it all off, the Mexican government announced that it had secured $55 million in private low-carbon investments since the beginning of the talk—all this while wealthy nations struggle to come up with funds to finance carbon reductions in the developing world.
It's clear that private companies are stepping in to do what the public sector hasn't been able to do—take concrete steps and shell out money to reduce greenhouse gases. Indeed, many officials are starting to treat these firms as major actors akin to governments. "I'm sure in the future [the Cancun conference] is going to be remembered as the moment when you have an additional part of the COP that is related with business,” predicted Bruno Ferrari, Mexico’s secretary of the economy. Last week, hundreds of businesses leaders staged their own climate summit. The message seemed clear: NGOs and non-profits haven't been able to fix the climate problem, so let's see if the private sector can.
Can they? It's clear that private companies can act much more nimbly than governments. The measures taken by the Consumer Goods Forum and Wal-Mart will start taking have real effects on global greenhouse gases immediately, whereas a formal climate treaty won't materialize until at least next year in Durban, South Africa—if that.
But there's also cause for concern. The companies making bold pronouncements about cutting emissions are, after all, the same ones who profited from putting all that carbon in the air in the first place. These companies realize they can attract publicity from bolstering the climate talks. But what happens after all the photo ops have been staged and the easy climate actions have been taken? "Businesses will have plenty of low-hanging fruit for next ten years, but if we don’t agree to a binding treaty to force further mitigation by then, we’re screwed,” says one NGO activist at the conference.
Indeed, some activists point out that if all these companies were as concerned about climate action as they claim to be, they'd be doing more in their own countries to push for change. "We are seeing more and more companies reflecting a broader mix of industries coming to the [U.N. climate talks," says Gary Cook, a policy analyst with Greenpeace. But, he grumbles, "many of them are not talking this talk back in their capitals or using their political influence in a meaningful way to demand greater government action. … In the mean time, they are letting trade associations—like BusinessEurope or the US Chamber Commerce—claim to speak for them.” The Chamber of Commerce, for instance, helped defeat legislation to curb carbon emissions in the United States. (Plus, of course, many of the companies that are currently singing out of the green hymnal have worked hard in previous years to bog down U.N. negotiations.)
What's more, these private-sector climate leaders are, as you'd expect, always self-interested. At a "Green Solutions" event in Cancun, Bruno Ferrari, Mexico's secretary of the economy, shared the stage with Graeme Sweeney, who is Shell's executive vice-president for future fuels and CO2. Sweeney used every opportunity to emphasize the importance of funding R&D for carbon capture and sequestration—a promising but completely unproven technology to reduce emissions from coal plants. While Shell's commitment to climate action is nice, it also seems to be a glorified form of lobbying.
Ultimately, it may not be the case that every action needed to avert global warming will be good for Shell's bottom line—or Wal-Mart's. That's why there should be a role for the public sector, to make painful but necessary decisions about climate change. But seeing as how the diplomats here at Cancun are poised to avoid making any tough decisions at all, it's looking increasingly likely that responsibility for protecting the planet will fall to the private sector.
Corbin Hiar is an associate editor at PBS MediaShift and climate blogger for UN Dispatch.
(Flickr photo credit: tcktcktck)
10 comments
Swell.
- Sophia
December 10, 2010 at 7:22pm
What should we expect? NOBODY is actually walking the walk. Everyone is talking the talk, from Al Gore, to Bono, Obama to Greenpeace to Exxon. But this is to be expected, right? If Bono and Gore cannot give up their lavish lifestyle for a cause that is supposedly important, then how on earth can we expect anyone that is struggling to make ends meet give up anything? Laurie David, the producer of An Inconvenient Truth still keeps houses on both coasts, and flies on holiday in private jet. But she made that movie because when she sees an SUV it makes her sad. Bono, Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews and every other rock star that supposedly cares STILL earns money they don't need by enticing 10's of millions of people to DRIVE 30 minutes to see them perform live. U2 enticed nearly 5M people to drive to a concert last year. And what you are left with is corporations (and individuals) profiting by posing. Nothing new here. And the posing will continue as long as it help their bottom line. They are the same as Walmart.
- seattleeng
December 12, 2010 at 10:46am
Nobody move. Everyone stay completely still.
- skahn
December 12, 2010 at 1:00pm
There is truth in what you say, seattleeng. OTOH, personal renunciation of carbon-intensive pleasures is irrelevant to the global warming problem. Asking people to sacrifice and use less energy simply will not work. As long as energy remains artificially cheap, too few people will be able to make themselves abstain to make a meaningful dent in emissions, and therefore the people who DO abstain will suffer to no benefit except insofar as their renunciation can serve as an example around which to organize political action. To fix the problem governments will have to intervene in order to reset the price of fossil fuels to a level commensurate with their environmental cost. When that happens Laurie David will have to decide whether she can still afford to jet around in her private plane and U2 fans will have to decide whether it is worth it to them to drive to a U2 show that now maybe uses one jumbotron instead of five. But you will see that it is not necessarily hypocritical for individuals to advocate for government action to increase carbon prices while continuing to avail themselves of cheap energy while it lasts. There's an analogy to taxes here. I'm a believer in a more highly progressive tax system and higher tax rates across the board. More than half my family income is my Australian wife's and so is not subject to US income tax, but at least a current exchange rates, if we were living/earning in the USA, we'd fall into the highest tax bracket whose rate of taxation has created such consternation in the last few weeks. Personally I'd be happy to pay 39%. We pay considerably more than that in income tax here in Oz plus a 10% goods and services tax on pretty much everything we buy, and yet we're perfectly comfortable. At the same time though, as pleased as I'd be to see rates raised on me and my fellow high-earners, I do presently and would continue to employ an accountant to help me take advantage of every angle permissable under the law to pay as little in tax as I can. I don't see it as being at all inconsistent for me to advocate for higher tax rates for everyone including myself while simultaneously endeavoring to pay as little in taxes as legally permitted. I may be generous, generally speaking, but I'm no sucker.
- AaronW
December 13, 2010 at 12:01am
Aaron writes: "As long as energy remains artificially cheap, too few people will be able to make themselves abstain to make a meaningful dent in emissions, and therefore the people who DO abstain will suffer to no benefit except insofar as their renunciation can serve as an example around which to organize political action." It's not that it's artificially cheap. The problem is that to make a meaningful dent--according to the scientists--you have to make it artificially expensive. When gas prices started teasing $5/gallon a few years back, consumption only dropped by 1%. However, scientists tell us we must reduce our output by >90%. For that to happen, I suspect gas prices will need to go to $15 or $20/gallon, maybe even $30/gallon. Consider the private jet. A 15 seater will burn 400 gallons of fuel per hour. So a round trip 90 minute jaunt that costs 600 gallons or $3000 for fuel would see that price jump to $30K. Would Teresa Kerry or Bill Gates or even Bono balk at that? Probably not. Overall, the hourly cost of operating the jet might only double. Guys like Bono wouldn't even blink at that. But that gas price ($30/gallon) would be absolutely devastating to americans earning even $500K to $1M per year. Your tax admission is odd. You will only suffer if everyone else suffers with you? Do I understand that right? There is no way you'd just suffer yourself and give away the "extra" money you have?
- seattleeng
December 13, 2010 at 2:03am
Giving away my excess cash would be ineffectual, in my opinion. As a political matter, I would like to live under a government with higher marginal tax rates--at least on high earners such as myself--and fewer loopholes, and I would expect such a hypothetical government to use those additional revenues to fund universal health care, education, improved public infrastructure, etc--all goods to which it is impossible for me to contribute meaningfully as a private charitable giver. Consistent with my support for such increased taxation for all, I would pay such higher taxes gladly. However, until such a more robust tax system exists, I prefer to retain as much of my income as permitted under current law. For me to donate additional funds to the IRS is pointless. It doesn't advance any of the goods that I have listed above, all of which require collective action on a massive scale. I'd prefer to retain whatever funds I'm entitled to and direct them either towards private charity or towards political action to bring about the kind of welfare state...er, west-European-style social democracy that I've described. I see nothing odd or inconsistent about any of this.
- AaronW
December 13, 2010 at 8:52am
So what do you say to the person down in Cancun right now that would like to see wealthy countries taxed at very high tax rates (even those making $50K/year) and those proceeds redistributed to poor countries? Recall developing nations have asked rich nations to hand over 1% of GDP. Not sure why they arrived at 1%. But libs always seems to pick a number that is "fair" without explaining how it was arrived at.
- seattleeng
December 13, 2010 at 11:00am
I would say to that person, "Sorry. I feel you pain, but money isn't the cure. Until you fix your governance, for us to just up and give you 1% of our GDP would be like throwing it to the wind. We'll commit money to helping you build up governance structures and other infrastructure, but in a graded fashion where unless and until we see a real commitment from the people on your end to do good work and root out corruption, transfers will hold steady or even shrink." I've worked in medical relief in the developing world. Absent infrastructure, particularly human infrastructure, as well as widespread corruption which, in its commonest form is simply a willingness to be paid to do as little real work as possible, are widespread problems, and money dumped into that environment as often as not makes the problems worse, not better. To a degree you can get around this by parachuting in outside expertice, but if the focus of those outside experts is the particular problem--treating HIV and TB in my case--instead of on helping improve local governance and infrastructure, then the aid makes few advances towards sustainability and creates a dependent relationship on the part of the recipient country that smacks of neo-colonialism.
- AaronW
December 13, 2010 at 5:25pm
The reference to Cancun was the various climate folks that are down there today, where it's increasingly popular to hear the poorer nations starting to demand the US and other wealthy countries "pay their fair share" to help the rest of the world. Not sure that was clear from my post. But that drumbeat is growing louder every year. The US has 4% of the world population, but 25% of the worlds wealth, it's not fair, blahblah Your "sorry I feel your pain..." makes you sound like a republican :) Isn't that what the US businessman working 80 hour weeks at his construction company he built from the ground up is saying to the poor person in the US working 22 hours a week (because that's all he cares to work) at Walmart? When the the business man says that, most here call him greedy and callous. Why are you not greedy and callous for telling the poor person in the developing world that he must fix his problems first?
- seattleeng
December 14, 2010 at 1:54am
There's a saying that the best time to start something is ten years ago. Walmart did. Do a little digging and see that Walmart has been working for years on many fronts to become energy efficient. Perhaps the "low hanging fruit" is saving kwh in the stores by reducing lighting needs as well as heating and cooling. That's a good thing. Fuel efficiency is also a primary concern of the company. Yes, there is a profit motive--God forbid. And do big corporations have a monopoly on carbon emmissions? How moronic! It would be great if one day the left would have the same reverence for companies like Walmart as hypocritical, carbon foot print record holders like Al Gore.
- 64099
December 15, 2010 at 10:53pm