Trillions of dollars, the estimated cost of meeting the Paris Climate Change Agreement. And a U.S. presidential candidate who would scrap the whole deal.
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No wonder that many corporate leaders — even enthusiastic supporters of the new international climate agreement — feel challenged to meet its commitments.
The New York Times report on the agreement becoming official, “The Paris Agreement of Climate Change Is Official. Now What?” http://nyti.ms/2e6yMI5 summarized the dilemma:
“Top energy policy makers and corporate leaders caution that it will be challenging to meet even the deal’s modest goals to reduce planet-warming emissions of greenhouse gases.
“Many companies have not even figured out yet how much greenhouse gas they emit, much less made plans to curb these emissions …
“The financial framework, namely a carbon price or tax that would force industries to pay for the pollution they spew, has barely started to emerge …
” ‘It’s not question of billions, it’s a question of trillions’, said Angel Gurria, the secretary general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development”.
And then there is Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for U.S. President. He has promised that if elected, he would rescind the U.S. commitment to this historic international commitment to confront the global climate change threat.
Over the decades — even centuries — the private sector has dealt successfully with seemingly existential challenges. Hopefully, over time, this will be one of them.