Climate Change’s Bottom Line
By BURT HELM
Mr.
Page is a member of the Risky Business Project, an unusual collection
of business and policy leaders determined to prepare American companies
for climate change. It’s a prestigious club, counting a former senator,
five former White House cabinet members, two former mayors and two
billionaires in the group. The 10 men and women who serve on the
governing committee don’t agree on much. Some are Democrats, some
Republicans.
Even
when it comes to dealing with climate change, they have very different
perspectives. Some advocate a national carbon tax, some want to mandate
companies to disclose their climate risks. Mr. Page suggests that the
world may be able to get by without any mandatory rules at all. Some
members want to push investors to divest from fossil fuel companies.
Several favor construction of the Keystone XL
pipeline, while one member has spent more than $1 million lobbying to
stop it. But they all do agree on one issue: Shifts in weather over the
next few decades will most likely cost American companies hundreds of
billions of dollars, and they have no choice but to adapt.
The committee started in June as a way to promote a study that it commissioned, “Risky Business: The Economic Risks of Climate Change in the United States.”....
.... The group is led by three men: Tom Steyer, the hedge fund billionaire whose super PAC spent $73 million last year attacking Republicans who denied climate change and promoting awareness of the issue; Henry M. Paulson Jr., the former chief executive of Goldman Sachs and the Treasury secretary under President George W. Bush; and Michael R. Bloomberg, New York City’s former mayor and the billionaire founder of the financial information company Bloomberg L.P. Each spent $500,000 to commission the Risky Business research and each has his own particular goals for the initiative, all of which would be served by making the climate threat feel real, immediate and potentially devastating to the business world.....
..... Through
this kind of education, several committee members hope to recruit
business leaders to the side that helps, not hinders, the fight against
climate change. “The whole point of all of this is that it can be
mitigated,” Mr. Paulson said. “The enemies of what we’re trying to do
are short-termism and a sense of hopelessness. But if we act soon we can
avoid the worst outcomes and adapt.”
Even so, the committee members seem to have a long road ahead of them..... more here
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