Stop Negotiating

9 May 2024

One way to ease the climate crisis is for the companies which emit the most greenhouse gases to stop voluntarily. This isn’t happening. Another way is to pass laws now that force them to stop. 

For more than 30 years, the nations of the world have been meeting to discuss the climate crisis. While there is broad agreement that emissions must be drastically reduced, no laws have been proposed which will bring about that result.

Instead, government officials have tried to get the fossil fuel companies and their customers (e.g., electric power generators and motor vehicle companies) to agree to new laws restricting emissions. This was a mistake. It hasn’t worked. It never will.

Rather than negotiate with businesses that have every incentive to stonewall and delay, government officials and others should try to build the political support necessary to enact laws requiring the emissions to stop. This legislation needs to be:

·     So simple everyone can understand and support it,

·     Able to be enacted all over the world and

·     Not require extensive litigation for enforcement.

The Code for Corporate Citizenship meets these conditions.  Starting tomorrow, I’ll have more on why enacting the Code will be more effective than negotiating.