Hsu co-authored Guardian op-ed on need for businesses to move beyond greenwash
he success of the Paris climate talks, COP 21, this December will not be measured by whether or not countries can all agree on a new global deal. It will rest on deals made outside the negotiation halls and beyond the traditional scope of international climate talks.
The New York climate change summit last September offers one bellwether for tracking this change, where 481 private companies and investors joined national, city and regional governments, and nearly 400 civil society groups to craft and sign 29 different pledges for climate action. These commitments take on targets that range from reducing deforestation to mitigating aviation sector emissions.
There is a gap between the emissions cuts countries have pledged and the reductions needed to keep the world from dangerous levels of climate change. We analysed the climate summit’s potential impact, finding that these 29 collaborative commitments could close the 2020 emissions gap by one-fifth, a quantity equal to India’s annual emissions in 2012.
Given these numbers, it is unsurprising that the NY Climate Summit was largely lauded as a success. The growing force of “non-state” (e.g., businesses and non-profits) and “sub-national” (e.g., cities and states) actors, begs the question how -- and if -- these groups will be included in the upcoming Paris climate negotiations.
