U.S. business getting with it on climate change
Talk about how the U.S. private sector is taking global warming seriously often flirts with wishful thinking. But we are nothing if not wishful. And flirty. So here goes: It looks like momentum is gathering in the U.S. business community to forthrightly address the issue of climate change. In part due to shareholder and activist lobbying, a growing number of companies are releasing reports on the financial risks associated with warming, including American Electric Power and Cinergy, two of the nation’s largest electric-power generators. Just this week, J.P. Morgan Chase, the country’s third-largest bank, announced an aggressive climate policy, joining Citigroup and Bank of America. Last month, Duke Energy CEO Paul Anderson called for a federal tax on carbon-dioxide emissions. Exelon CEO John Rowe called for mandatory restraints on same. Says Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, a coalition of investors and enviros, “Change is slow, painfully slow, so we have a long way to go, but progress is unquestionably being made.”
