Can Corporations Stop Climate Change?

It's way past time to stop privatizing everything and letting profiteers rip. Looting and exploiting is approaching its endgame on our once lovely and hospitable but finite planet. Government is not the problem, bad government is. And the government blamers are the ones who made it so. We humans need to realize we are a community, and that problems are only solved when we work together to solve them. Only government has the reach to create universal health care with power in negotiation. Same with climate change; for a civilizational threat, we need all of civilization to pull up its bootstraps and stop hiding from the problem. Being comfortable isn't much use when our home is tanking. Apathy and despair are also laziness in disguise, but our worship of wealth and the things that money can buy ignores our powerful existential crisis, and it's a doozie! The earth has the only seat at the table, and it bats 1000.

This episode no longer shows up on the menu of the Apple Podcast app on my phone, but I'm glad to see that the episode is still available online via the web. Is there an issue that needs to be reviewed?

This is an important story that shines a spotlight on the role of businesses in addressing climate change. The critical question, not addressed in the podcast, is whether Amazon, Delta, Microsoft and other companies will use the most powerful tool they have to fight climate change — their political influence — to advance the public policies needed to get to net zero emissions by 2050. That's a story I hope the Times will continue to cover in the weeks and months ahead.

As someone who works in the renewable energy industry, I was very disappointed by this episode's ending tone of “since China emits more than the US and Europe combined, American corporate activity doesn’t matter.” If we are to stay below the tipping point of 1.5°C, we have a carbon budget of roughly 600 GTCO2e. If China continues to emit at their current rate, then the rest of the world must compensate for their shortcomings, making actions like corporate pledges to improve their carbon balance even more important. If we think of this carbon budget as a volume of water that a boat can take before it sinks, it hopefully becomes clear that every drop of water we add to the boat increases likelihood that it will sink, and every drop we prevent from adding increases the likelihood that it will float. If you are on this sinking boat with dozens of holes allowing water to flow in, would you not even try to block some of the smaller holes? Would you not try to bail some of the water out? Sure, corporate climate pledges are imperfect, but it’s better than sitting idly by and waiting for the ship to sink. Taking the attitude of “well it’s not worth trying until China gets their act together” is like telling your school-aged child that it’s okay to continue picking on the new kid so long as the bigger bullies are doing it too.

Andrew Ross Sorkin seems wilfully ignorant of the goals of international efforts to get global consensus for action, with allowance for countries like China that started much later on the industrialisation process than the West. Of course, the US Government is walking away from all that.

This segment makes it clear: Global climate change is definitely a global government responsibility. But global business—driven by worldwide demand, of course—may finally take responsibility for reminding their governments that this is a giant problem. And that everyone in the equation has waited way too long.

Great story about the evolving responses to climate change. It is important as you note to point out the critical actions needed by governments to make real differences in addressing climate change. China is now the largest emitter of greenhouse gases and their action on climate change is essential as you indicate. This point though can make it seem like the US, including corporate America, is perhaps not nearly as responsible as it is. GHGs don’t just come and go from the atmosphere on an annual basis. Carbon dioxide remains for decades and the current impacts to the climate are the result of these cumulative emissions. Through this lens, the US is by far the greatest contributor to climate change. Our country, it’s citizens, businesses and government, must take responsibility commensurate with our role in the current and growing crisis. That responsibility is enormous!

Google, Microsoft and Amazon have emphasized their efforts to reduce global dependence on fossil fuels. But as the Wall Street Journal and Gizmodo reported, these same companies are currently partnering with the fossil fuel industry to help them extract as much oil and gas as possible from the soil. Oil has always been difficult to find and extract, so the industry has faltered precariously on the verge of profitability several times throughout its history. Time and again, experts have predicted that we will soon run out of accessible and affordable oil, but so far, they have been wrong. Just when things look more bleak for black gold, new technologies make their way to keep the industry afloat. In 2018, the oil and gas industries spent an estimated $ 1.75 billion on AI, a sum that is expected to increase to $ 4 billion by 2025. To get their share of that pie, the big tech companies are developing AI for oil companies, while announcing their actions to protect the environment at four winds. So don't be so naive .....

While I definitely agree that China should contribute to the global fight against climate change, I find the comment that the companies' efforts are fruitless compared to the carbon emmissions of China, which are bigger than the US and Europe combined, - while surely accurate - somewhat misleading. China also has many more people than the US and Europe combined, therefore their per capita output is still less than that of Americans and Europeans. If you would then add the carbon footprints of consumer goods to the country of consumption and not the one of production, the weight shifts even more towards the US and Europe. If you then regard the historical burden of the West, which industrialized decades if not centuries earlier, the Chinese output is minimal in comparison. I think it is a cheap excuse, if we now say "Whatever we do is meaningless, look at China!" and I think the New York Times should put that into perspective, when reporting about the topic, because otherwise many readers or listeners will just jump to the conclusion that they, their country, their government is released from any responsibility as long as China is continuing to emit carbon. While we should work towards convincing developing economies to take efforts towards reducing their emissions, at the same time we cannot expect them to forgo the priviledges we ourselves take for granted.

I am so happy to see that we are finally just getting to it. This has taken too long.

I'm glad to here that American corporations are "finally" putting carbon gas emission reduction on their agenda, but the question still remains, how are they going to make their agenda coincide with the American government''s agenda which is (judging from past administrations) usually different. Being Canadian, but having followed this issue for quite some time, I'm curious as to how regulations can be agreed upon when you have 50 states with their own environmental laws, albeit they also have to follow U. S. government regulations. wouldn't say it's impossible, but with all those corporations in all those states, doesn't that make things complicated ? I agree with American corporations taking steps to address this issue (don't forget Wal-Mart) then there is hope , regardless of how complicated the situation is. I also agree that China, with Beijing being the smog capitol of the world must be pursued aggressively on this issue. Is it any wonder that viruses like the "Corona" virus run amok , but that's another story altogether isn't it ?

Great story. I'd love to see The Daily cover the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) protests in India. Protests have been going on for months and deserve international attention, especially now that Trump is in India meeting with Modi.

If Blackrock has so much sway with mega tech companies, how about they weigh in on the child abuse imagery that has flooded these companies without answer per The Daily 2/19/20 and 1/20/20?!

When you said that China has the biggest carbon emissions worldwide and Microsoft the lowest in comparison to the other two companies you looked at closely, don’t corporations like Microsoft (and Apple and who not) have a huge production lines in China? And should they not be held responsible for the carbon emission they cause in China as much as for the emission they cause in the US?

Corporate or individual choices have little effect. Government regulation can have an effect. But in this case, it would have to be a co-ordinated global regulatory scheme, and there is no global authority powerful enough to legislate and enforce regulation. Even if such an authority existed, carbon already in the atmosphere takes 25 years to make its effect fully felt, so there is quite a bit of damage already baked in.

This piece and the articles by Andrew Ross Sorkin leading up to it (Jan 14. re: BlackRock), is especially critical news. I have worked for years to raise corporate awareness on actions that must be undertaken not only to reduce their operational GHG emissions directly, but also to lower the emissions profile of raw materials and end-consumers associated with their products and services. It is hard to encourage these commitments without strong signals from investors. At the same time, I was a little concerned by the skepticism on the role of offsets. There are some industries for which there are fewer options to reduce emissions until the technology is available (e.g. Delta Airlines), and once all available emissions reductions are achieved there will still be some impact (i.e. travel is not free). Offsets can be real, additional, and permanent. They can also create vital investments in the some of the precious places and resources that are affected by climate change. As one example, forest ecosystems around the world are being lost and it is a "real" action to protect these places. There will be climate benefit captured in offsets when the math is done honestly and correctly. There will also be an unquantifiable benefit in safeguarding the bounty of nature. After all, it would still be a tragedy to finally arrest and reverse global climate change, but to have already lost many of the species living in coral reefs, forests, and natural ecosystems around the globe.

Great reporting and production, as always, but disappointed in the cynical conclusion. Doing something is clearly better than doing nothing. And we we need all corporations to do their part. Even if it is relatively small. It will take millions of small and large efforts to affect the crisis.

Considering it will be way too late for the planet if we wait for governments to make any real changes (especially if Trumps re-elected), what these tech corporations are doing is exactly what is the solution, our only hope. Just as long as they’re doing something real to help - anything - and will influence other corporations.

These huge corporations are not civic minded enough to pay taxes to support governmental efforts to arrest climate change, but they’ll make feeble efforts to do it on their own. I want my government making these efforts. Private corporations could start by calling off their legions of lobbyists, lawyers and CPA’s who spend billions to obstruct our government. Corporations are like Frankenstein. They are killing their governmental creator. By the way, Blackrock is too big and monopolistic. Break it up.

Of course they can, but without being forced, each corporation will want to do a little less than the others. Just the same as governments. "Why should we do more?"

If a Google search is about 0.2 grams of CO2, then Andrew (or anyone else) may be happy to find that Larry's final draft is just a few exhales away on BlackRock's corporate site.

Climate Change equals Values Changes for the Globe: 1- Economic Growth for Corporations cannot be the success measure 2- Growth across all industries cannot be the success measure 3- Global population must slow considerably so that 8Billion is the for-ever top limit 4- Natural resources extraction must be curbed for 40 years and instead REUSE what has already been extracted 5- Burning fossil fuels for energy (electric and internal combustion) must curbed to end by 2030 at the very latest ---- Our economic structures must change from growth to sustainability fiscally to allow the Earth to survive.....