Temperatures in Delhi, India recently hit more than 50C, leaving thousands hospitalised and a rising death toll. Scientists have warned rising temperatures, exacerbated by climate change, are becoming a public health hazard for a region home to more than 30 million people. In Brazil, unprecedented flooding engulfed the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. Whole cities have been evacuated, roads and bridges destroyed, and the main airport is closed indefinitely. And in Saudi Arabia hundreds have died during the Hajj pilgrimage.
Climate change is here, changing where and how we live and restricting the ability of communities, governments and businesses to operate.
Alarm bells are ringing and a serious discourse on climate change is more crucial than ever. As the stakes rise and the time left for action narrows, informed decision-making has never been more important. The European Parliament elections have shown the make-up of politics at the EU changing, with a strong shift to the right. The French result led to President Emmanuel Macron immediately dissolving the national parliament and calling a new election.
We know that accelerated and robust decision-making on climate change tends to be slower during periods of volatile politics. We also see that growing polarisation across our societies risk driving apart the climate community itself.
Environmentalism has been around for a long time. Rachel Carson’s seminal ‘Silent Spring’ made waves back in the 1960s and since then the movement has grown and moved from the fringes to the centre of public and political attention. At its core the climate and environmental movement continues to embrace many of the traits and belief systems it engendered and nurtured more than half a century ago – passion, courage, determination, speaking truth to power.
What has changed is the make-up and diversity of the community working towards the shared goal of stabilising the climate and restoring nature. Today, those at the table calling for the halving of emissions by 2030 in alignment with the Paris Agreement, include more central, regional and local government and city representatives, indigenous leaders, many more scientists across different disciplines, CEOs from global corporations, SMEs and entrepreneurs, big philanthropic funders, expert journalists and people from a much wider variety of social demographics.
Such diversity is essential in addressing a challenge that impacts everybody. Yet it can also bring tension, with those galvanising action seeking agreement from a wide range of viewpoints.
In this context, differing ideas on how to solve the problems of climate change and disagreements about tactics must not harden into ideological divisions. Any such intransigence could overshadow collaborative efforts, hindering progress and defining only what tactics separates rather than the goal that unites.
Many people are cautious about the intentions of companies that have committed to decarbonization and with some reason. There have been bad faith actors from the corporate world, greenwashing their activities, depleting the world’s resources, damaging the environment and wasting the planet’s and the climate movement’s time and energies. But that is a very simplistic view of the activities and vast challenges facing businesses today that are trying to transition to green models, especially when technology and policy often need to catch up.
A mature climate community must be able to have a serious and informed conversation about the integral role business has to play in decarbonizing our economies and restoring the natural environment. The issue is not whether a company is over-selling green, the issue is how the barriers to selling green can be removed so that we can advance faster. That includes recognising those companies that are living up to their promises, and increasingly pushing policymakers and politicians to introduce better standards and regulation. It also means spending more energy pushing the laggards to take climate action.
At We Mean Business Coalition, we work with committed business leaders whose dedication to climate action cannot be overestimated. We have seen companies invest in the development of innovative solutions, trying to find low carbon alternatives, new technologies, business models, more dynamic and groundbreaking collaborations. What succeeds in one sector or geography is not a good fit for another, often hampered by less enabling policy landscapes, the absence of level playing fields and price points for green products that customers will not pay. This is a complex obstacle race, and because business knows it is the only route to the decarbonisation that will protect economies, they keep getting up and keep on trying.
Work on climate change and nature restoration and protection is becoming more granular, with more sophisticated policies at national and local level, influenced by business and investor decisions, and is more dependent on society willingness to embrace change. All of those working in this space need to take a hard look at how we collaborate across these multiple layers as it is becoming clearer that what we are doing now isn’t working.
Failure to actively include corporate approaches to climate action, leaves the climate community with a skewed and sometimes unrealistic perception of where solutions lie. It is clear there is no credible route to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement without the leadership, innovation and financial resources of business. Simplistic anti-business, anti-corporate or anti-capitalist sentiment is a failure of experience as to what can be achieved through green investment and markets. It serves none of our goals to persist in old tropes of goodies and baddies.
The science-based transition to a sustainable future will entail trial and error, with course corrections and improved standards and regulation along the way. The urgency of the climate crisis necessitates heuristic solutions – practical, rule-of-thumb approaches that will, in all likelihood, not be perfect but are effective in addressing immediate challenges. Debate cannot be the barrier to action. With all hands on deck, we must commit now and collectively to continuous improvement and adaptation. Later will be too late.