Time for a stronger signal of climate leadership

One week from today, thousands of delegates will descend upon the home of big tech for the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS). Billed as a "moment to celebrate the extraordinary achievements of states, regions, cities, companies, investors and citizens with respect to climate action," the Summit in San Francisco promises to “Take Ambition to the Next Level.” This is urgently needed. As I have been preparing to attend, three thoughts have occurred to me on what new corporate climate leadership looks like

• First, companies need to do more and do better. A recent evaluation of non-state climate action by Yale University and the NewClimate Instituteconcluded that more ambitious commitments are needed in order to hold global temperature rise to well below 2C. Moreover, more needs to be done to incentivize and implement these commitments. While more than 2,000 companies have made individual climate mitigation commitments, only 103 companies have validated science-based targets. Gone are the days when a carbon intensity target or renewables goal was the benchmark of ambition. "Extraordinary achievement" now requires absolute emissions reductions consistent with well below 2C. 
• Second, reducing emissions while ignoring risk and resilience is no longer tenable to be considered amongst the vanguard of corporate leaders on climate. The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season was the costliest on record, with a total of over US$290 billion in damages from Harvey and Irma alone. The global cost of climate change is estimated to reach between $2 trillion and $4 trillion by 2030 and could be as high as $24 trillion. Just last week a study from George Washington University estimated the death toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria to be close to three thousand American citizens. The spike in mortality came from the initial impact of the storm and from widespread and lengthy power outages, a lack of access to adequate health care, water insecurity and diseases related to the crisis. Few companies seem to fully understand the three dimensions of climate riskspanning the increase in frequency and intensity of climate hazards, growing exposure to those hazards, and underlying vulnerabilities that amplify harm. Fewer still have developed strategies to build resilience inside individual companies, across complex supply chains, and within frontline communities. As a result, large swathes of the economy are working with outdated enterprise risk management systems. In addition, more attention needs to be given to adaptation to counterbalance a primarily exclusive focus by the corporate sector on mitigation. A disproportionate emphasis on emissions reductions risks creating the optics of European and North American companies prioritizing on a global north agenda at the expense of issues dear to developing countries. This undermines credibility at precisely the moment when political capital with these countries is vital to realizing the ambition of the Paris Agreement.
• Third, companies need a whole systems approach to address climate change. We cannot achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement by building progressive environmental policies while simultaneously advocating for regressive social and economic ones. Anand Giridharadas, a former columnist for The New York Times, has recently published a scathing rebukeof the global elites who aspire to be agents of positive change while pursuing policies and practices that cause socio-ecological harm. He writes convincingly of companies using zero-hours contracts to keep pay low and deny benefits; the loss of stable employment as a relentless focus on stock performance leads to an obsession with cost-cutting; the starving of public finances as companies game the tax system; and government affairs departments undercutting policies that would enable improved sustainability performance. He also quotes Michael Porter who has suggested that globalization has led companies to reduce their investments in "the commons" and their need to rediscover a sense of "citizenship" that would value people and places more than pure profits. This matters enormously because climate risk is more than just exposure to extreme weather events. Risk is exacerbated when communities lack access to decision-making, information and justice. Household risk is amplified when people lack financial, social, natural, political, physical and human capital. Supply chain disruption becomes more likely when structural discrimination, inequality and poverty prevail in the communities that farm our land and service our factories. Companies must recognize this and commit to an integrated approach to building low-carbon, climate-resilient, and inclusive societies.

Companies have the potential to reach for this new corporate climate leadership by using a simple framework:

1. ACT: Commit to emissions reductions, resilience building and a whole systems approach to climate leadership through operations, investments, and procurement. 
2. ENABLE: Work across the full value chain to incentivize climate leadership - both horizontally across corporate divisions, and vertically across increasingly global and complex supply chains.
3. INFLUENCE: Advocate for increased leadership within industry groups and chambers of commerce, and public policies that catalyze corporate leadership on climate at the international, national and local levels. 

It is right that we meet in San Francisco to "celebrate extraordinary achievements." In recent years, unprecedented progress has been made towards a low-carbon, climate-resilient and inclusive economy. But the notion of achievement is dynamic. What looked like leadership five years ago now begins to seem dated. I remember watching the Athletics World Championships in 1991. The world record had stood for an astonishing 23 years. It was the defining achievement in athletics and seemed set to endure. Within the space of 20 minutes Mike Powell and Carl Lewis broke the record on three separate occasions, creating a new benchmark of success and redefining what achievement had looked like for an entire generation. 

As we meet at the Global Climate Action Summit, the time has come for own community to redefine achievement once more and create a new benchmark of success for corporate climate leadership.