Times are changing. A two-hour lecture by a failed politician has attracted audiences across the globe to become one of the biggest grossing cinema documentaries yet seen. This alone is sufficient testament to the growing concern over the probable effects of climate change.
Melting glaciers, rising sea levels, droughts and floods, stronger hurricanes: these are the likely effects of climate change, and Al Gore, in his recent film An Inconvenient Truth, gives us a whirlwind tour through the worst of them. He describes it as “a nature hike through the Book of Revelations”.
Scientists have known of these probable effects of climate change for some time. What is new, and one of the main points of Mr Gore’s film, is the increasing sense of urgency among many climatologists. They are warning that, rather than cosily imagining that these effects would not be felt for several decades, we are beginning to see them already, and happening at a much faster pace than had been predicted.
That sense of urgency is becoming increasingly apparent, too, in the business world, where companies are responding to consumer demands that they help to tackle the problem of climate change. At a conference held by Mr Gore’s former boss, Bill Clinton, in New York in September, leading business figures such as Richard Branson, of Virgin Group, and Rupert Murdoch, of News Corp, announced that they would undertake significant initiatives aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and thus climate change. They joined the likes of Jeff Immelt of General Electric and Lee Scott of Wal-Mart in leading their companies to reduce their “environmental footprint” through means such as cutting energy use.
A long roll call of some of the world’s biggest companies and most famous household names are now committed to the cause of “sustainable business”. Banks, oil companies, manufacturers and marketers have signed up to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and seek ways to help their customers do the same. The outlook for pressure groups trying to foster environmental concern among businesses has never been better – even as the outlook for the planet, according to climate scientists, has never been worse.
Mr Murdoch pledged to make News Corp “absolutely carbon neutral”. To be carbon neutral, a company must first reduce its emissions from activities such as transport and energy use, and then “offset” any remaining emissions.
This can be done by investing in projects, usually in developing countries, that reduce carbon dioxide emissions by the equivalent of the company’s remaining carbon output. This both balances out a company’s effect on the environment and gives poor countries access to environmental technologies such as wind farms and solar panels.
His son and heir apparent, James Murdoch, had previously taken British Sky Broadcasting carbon neutral in May, saying: “There’s simply no bigger challenge we face [than climate change].”
Environmental groups caution, however, that companies seeking to become carbon neutral must reduce their own emissions rather than simply pay for emissions reductions elsewhere.
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