The Case for Corporate Action on Climate Change
| Date | 01 May 2018 |
| Author |
5-2018 NEWS & ANALYSIS 48 ELR 10381
On June 2, 2017, President Donald Trump
announced his decision to withdraw from the
Paris Agreement on climate change. is decision
was one of a series of several actions taken by t he current
Administration to reverse the climate initiatives that had
been put into place over the previous eight years under
President Barack Obama.
With these ac tions, the fe deral government has relin-
quished the leadership role it ha d assumed on climate
chang e during the Obama years. It has done so at a
time when a consensus has coa lesced in the scientic
communit y around the fa cts that the climate is cha ng-
ing, these changes are due in large measure to huma n
activities, and the consequences of climate ch ange pose
a grave threat to the environment and modern society.
is consen sus was docu mented most recent ly in the
Climate Science Special Report— Fourth National Climate
Assessment,1 which was released by the Trump White
House on November 17, 2017.
at report—which was prepared by more than 300
U.S. scientists and peer-reviewed by the National Acad-
emy of Sciences—found that “[t]rends in globally averaged
temperature, sea level rise, upper-ocean heat content, land-
based ice melt, arctic sea ice, depth of seasonal perma frost
thaw, and other climate variables provide consistent evi-
dence of a warming planet.”2 Describing such “observed
trends” as “robust and ... conrmed by multiple indepen-
dent resea rch groups a round t he world,” the report con-
cluded that “many lines of evidence demonstrate that it is
extremely likely that human inuence has been the domi-
nant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th
century.”3 is Comment is premised upon this unambig-
uous scientic determination.
1. U.S. G C R P, C S S
R—F N C A (2017), available at
https://science2017.globalchange.gov/downloads/CSSR2017_FullReport.
pdf.
2. Id. at 35.
3. Id.
One might think t hat actions taken by the federal gov-
ernment to stie regulation on virtually any topic would
be embraced by major industry. But that is far from the
case in t his instance. On May 10, 2017, the chief execu-
tive ocers of 30 major corporations wrote an open let-
ter to the president expressing their “strong support for the
United States remaining in the Paris Climate A greement,”
in a last-ditch eort to persuade him that the American
economy, on balance, would benet from the accord.4
Moreover, almost 1,000 businesses (along with 14 states
and hundreds of cities and academic institutions) have for-
mally pledged to achieve emissions reductions consistent
with the Paris Agreement, notwithsta nding the president’s
decision to withdraw.
But opposition to the Trump Administration’s policy
of climate denia l is by no means u niversal in the busi-
ness community. Major trade a ssociations, like the U.S.
Chamber of C ommerce and the National Association of
Manufacturers (which have long opposed federal climate
action), and a number of major energ y companies voiced
support for the president’s decision to aba ndon the Paris
Agreement, and the Chamber and scores of local business
organizations had act ively opposed the Obama Adminis-
tration’s Clean Power Plan.5
us, corporate America does not spea k with one voice
on climate cha nge. On the one hand, hundreds of com-
panies recognize t he gravity of the environmental, social,
and economic disruption that the majority of climate sci-
entists are predicting, and are taking action to reduce their
exposure to the nancia l risks of climate change, quantify
and control their greenhouse gas emissions, and adapt to
4. See CEOs of Major U.S. Companies Urge Trump: Stay in Paris, B T, May
10, 2017, http://bteam.org/announcements/30-major-ceos-call-on-trump-
stay-in-paris/. Companies included as signatories include, but are not lim-
ited to, the following: Dow Chemical Group, 3M, Bank of America, E.I.
du Pont de Nemours, Procter & Gamble, General Electric, Campbell Soup,
Goldman Sachs, Cargill, Citigroup, Johnson & Johnson, Tesla, Coca-Cola,
JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Walt Disney.
5. In fact, the Chamber and numerous local business organizations led an
amici curiae brief opposing the Clean Power Plan in State of West Virginia
et al. v. U.S. Environmental Prot. Agency, No. 15-1363, 2016 WL 1274108
(D.C. Cir. Jan. 21, 2016).
The Case for Corporate
Action on Climate Change
by J. Kevin Healy and Bryan Keyt
J. Kevin Healy and Bryan Keyt are partners with Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP.
Copyright © 2018 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120.
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