Corporate concern on climate rises

More companies favor action on emissions, both for environmental and pragmatic reasons.

By Mark Trumbull | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the May 16, 2007 edition

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American businesses have reached a new phase regarding global warming, with more CEOs focused increasingly on what steps government should take, not on whether major new policies are needed.

Duke Energy's Jim Rogers, for example, runs a large electric utility but supports a mandatory cap on carbon-dioxide emissions. And last week, General Motors joined a list of companies urging policies that include tighter standards on vehicle emissions and a US economy-wide cap on carbon output.

Even Big Oil has changed its tune, with ConocoPhillips shoulder to shoulder with GM in the US Climate Action Partnership, or USCAP.

All this doesn't mean that corporate America has locked arms with the environmental community. But it adds momentum to the policy discussions that are now getting under way in earnest on Capitol Hill.

Legislation will take time to crystallize. But, judging by the jockeying for position by powerful corporations, it's on the way.

"A compromise will eventually emerge," says Jeff Holmstead, a former US air-quality official now in private legal practice in Washington. But "figuring out how to do it is enormously complicated…. A huge amount is at stake."

Federal policies could emerge piece by piece, with some being relatively easy to enact. But an overhaul, anything with the potential to cap or reduce total greenhouse-gas emissions, would represent an environmental-policy push "bigger than anything that has been done," says Mr. Holmstead. The firm he has joined, Bracewell & Giuliani, works with a range of corporate clients on climate-change issues.

The shift by business has come about gradually, and for varied reasons. For one, public consensus on the science of climate change has solidified, and corporations have followed with varying degrees of commitment. Some chief executives, though, simply have "got religion" on what they see as a major threat to both ecosystems and the economy.

In addition, some companies see an entrepreneurial opportunity ahead, developing products and services to mitigate greenhouse-gas emissions.

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