Groups Affirm Need to Address Climate Change

This has been the hottest summer in Arizona for quite a while. In the meantime, rivers have been flooding in Texas, and San Francisco saw rain for the first time in July. In Mumbai, people were swept away in main streets. So it is no wonder that governments and businesses are now in a race to meet or exceed the Kyoto protocol, promising new methods for controlling greenhouse gas emissions.

The Toronto City Council voted 37-0 this week to adopt a plan that aims to cut greenhouse gases in the city by 6 per cent by 2012, 30 per cent by 2020 and by a full 80 per cent by 2050. It will involve retrofitting buildings and exploring geothermal energy for large public buildings.

On almost the same day, the Business Roundtable, an association of 160 chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies, announced a new policy statement on climate change, acknowledging that climate change poses a serious risk and that the time for action is now. You can download the entire document.

Because ESS has been in the business of reporting on emissions for more than ten years, we know that the enterprise has been taking the issues of sustainability more and more seriously. This year, clearly we have reached a tipping point. Business leaders have even asked for a better national registry for emissions tracking, because they are building benchmarks and measurable objectives into their plans, much as a the City of Toronto has done.

Once numbers are assigned to these goals, business will achieve them — you heard it here first.

1 comment July 19th, 2007