Companies Start to Get Climate Change

Here's a spot of good news, maybe.

While the political debate over global warming continues, top executives at many of the nation's largest energy companies have accepted the scientific consensus about climate change and see federal regulation to cut greenhouse gas emissions as inevitable.

The Democratic takeover of Congress makes it more likely that the federal government will attempt to regulate emissions. The companies have been hiring new lobbyists who they hope can help fashion a national approach that would avert a patchwork of state plans now in the works. They are also working to change some company practices in anticipation of the regulation.

"We have to deal with greenhouse gases," John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Co., said in a recent speech at the National Press Club. "From Shell's point of view, the debate is over. When 98 percent of scientists agree, who is Shell to say, 'Let's debate the science'?"...

"If we had our druthers, we'd already have carbon legislation passed," said John L. Stowell, Duke Energy's vice president for environmental policy. "Our viewpoint is that it's going to happen. There's scientific evidence of climate change. We'd like to know what legislation will be put together so that, when we figure out how to increase our load, we know exactly what to expect."

I think this is the right track. Look, there's no getting around the problem of climate change. Companies like Exxon ought to be shoved out of business by consumers for dragging us through lies and deceit for the past decade. Same goes for the political leaders, like the current president and vice-president, who have also maintained a disingenuous propagandic front about climate change and the United States' overwhelming contribution to the problem.

Yet, it's heartening that some companies are making their own adjustments and now seek clear climate change policy. From the point of view of a business, it obviously makes sense - you want to know what the near-term regulative climate will look like so that you can make efficient business plans accordingly.

Dealing with climate change via industry has always been a crucial step. The US has always said that the country would make no steps in the direction of mitigating climate change if these steps harmed "national interests." But there's a little, unspoken secret when it comes to industry - companies are often much less concerned about absolute profits than they are relative profits. That is, if all other companies in direct competition with each other were to accept new GHG-mitigation technologies and policies, or if they all had to abide by the same regulatory regime (and we're necessarily talking strict regulations here), then agreement would be much easier to find. As long as bastards like Exxon have held out for absolute gains in the energy market, this has been impossible.

Now, however, will we see a real stab at mitigating climate change and the GHGs that cause it? If the cause interesgts you - and it obviously ought to - then you might consider pushing your representatives, boycotting companies like Exxon, and demanding of the new Democratic Congress that they finally make a genuine effort at creating a climate change regime that makes substantive progress.