Show Your Stripes Day Brings Attention To Alarming Warming Trend

The 21st of June marked Show Your Stripes Day. A day when people bring awareness to the climate crisis by showing a data visualization of the ‘warming stripes’ of their region from pre-industrial times to now. This handy tool from Reading University will show you what the warming trends are in your home state or country. The header image from this week is the warming trend in my home state Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, no matter where you look, the stripes are headed the same way, trending toward hotter temperatures.

Guterres To Big Oil: Cease and Desist

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asked fossil fuel companies to "cease and desist" measures that aim to "knee-cap" climate progress.? Along the same lines, the UN will implement new transparency rules to disclose industry affiliations of participants in global climate talks.? The rules were in response to revelations that there were more delegates from the fossil fuel industries than from any single country at COP26 in Glasgow, and those numbers grew at COP27 in Egypt, according to Global Witness.

Harassment Allegations at UN Climate Talks?

Shockingly, the UN climate talks have been rocked by claims of harassment. Delegates from the US, UK, Mexico, and 20 other countries signed a letter to UN climate change head Simon Stiell alleging inappropriate behavior and calling for action to “ensure a harassment-free environment” ahead of COP 28.

Their campaign for reforms gathered momentum throughout the two-week pre-COP talks in Bonn and resulted in Simon Stiell closing the meeting by saying that “harassment, be it in the form of sexism, bullying or sexual harassment, is not acceptable.”

Final Standards Near as Lobbying Begins for Next Round

The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) is set to release its two standards for sustainability disclosure on June 30th. Ahead of the release, the ISSB announced they would be increasing their global footprint by opening their Asian headquarters in Beijing.?

?Before the ink was dry on the final standards, the World Benchmarking Alliance, The B Team, and Shift signed a letter calling for the ISSB to prioritize social-related disclosures in their next standard.?

And there was some slightly cryptic news on the long-awaited US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) climate disclosure rule… A recent update from the GSA website has revealed that the rule will be finalized on October 00, 2023. It’s not clear what ‘00’ means - but it's a good guess that the rule will be finalized sometime in October.?

Does Woke = Broke?

With recent high-profile cases of companies facing economic backlash from their ESG or “woke” stances, this article from the BBC showed that, while companies that take a progressive stance toward equality may see a short-term dip in revenue, they can come back stronger than ever depending on how they react to the initial fallout.

Tony D'Angelo, a public relations professor at Syracuse University, "Brands need to pick a position and stick to it'' referring to BudLight, whose sales were down due to support for the LGBTQ+ community. He said, “What hurt Bud Light was they seemed to flip-flop," as they failed to support Dylan Mulvaney, the LGBTQ+ influencer caught up in their marketing fiasco.

The US culture war has also had repercussions for the corporate proxy season in the US, with votes for ESG resolutions down from previous years. However, the votes being down isn’t the whole picture, 2023 will set the record for ESG-related resolutions filed.

Green hushing has been the standard response to the ESG culture war so far, but the FT posited that ESG can be saved by acknowledging its flaws and finding common ground between its critics on the left and right.

Glacial Melts Accelerating

Now that El Ni?o is officially here, we can expect it to get much hotter for the rest of the year. This will only speed up glacial melting in the Himalayas and the European Alps - already accelerating at a higher rate than in previous decades.

In the Himalayas, where glaciers are melting 65% faster than in the previous decade, the result is flooding in some areas and droughts in others.?

In an effort to preserve their glaciers and environment, the Swiss approved a new climate bill designed to cut fossil fuel use and reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.?

Biden Announces More Cash For Climate

This week President Biden announced an additional $2.9 billion for climate change adaptation and resilience to protect coastal communities and electrical grid infrastructure. Biden said, “Last year alone, natural disasters in America caused $165 billion in damage...? But the worsening impacts are not inevitable.”

Additionally, the Biden administration rolled back Trump-era changes by proposing new regulations that would make it harder to remove a species from the endangered list and strengthen protections for threatened species.

NASA Visuals Showing Climate Change Realities

This week NASA released two videos that show the realities of the climate crisis.?

The first depicts the carbon cycle in action in 2021, showing the sources of CO2 added to Earth's atmosphere and where it was absorbed. The second video shows how much the global sea level has risen between 1993 and 2022, through a submerged porthole.

The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.?

Other Notable News:

• Sarah Finch, a woman from Surrey, England, is single-handedly challenging the future of fossil fuel extraction in the UK. Ms. Finch is challenging the drilling of four oil wells on climate change grounds at a local council. The verdict of the case could have national ramifications.
• My company, BCG, recently announced a purchase agreement with CarbonCapture for 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide removal credits over five years, making it one of the largest Direct Air Capture deals to date.
• Gas stoves are at the center of the culture war as Republicans try to block bans even after a new study likened their cancerogenic Benzene release to secondhand cigarette smoke.?
• French authorities are shutting down the environmental activist group Les Soulevements de la Terre (SLT) after it was claimed they were planning ‘eco-terrorism.’?
• The Texas power grid is struggling to cope. As heat records were broken across Texas - Corpus Christi's heat index climbed to 125 degrees.

Notable Podcasts (And a Rebuttal):?

• This week’s The So What podcast from BCG explores capitalism and communities of color. Podcast guest James H. Lowry Senior Advisor, BCG; Founder James H. Lowry & Associates Chicago, looks at why companies are finally creating diversity initiatives with staying power and how corporations and communities alike benefit from diversity, financial inclusion, racial equity, and minority business enterprises.
• In this week’s The Climate Question from the BBC, the hosts explore how wars affect the climate. They look at a recent report that estimated the huge emissions from the war in Ukraine, the effects of civil war in Tigray, Ethiopia, an area once known for effective reforestation projects, and the broader emissions from militaries.
• Read my rebuttal to #Freakonomics Radio’s recent episode claiming #ESG investing is counterproductive, in collaboration with Derek Young.?