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      Criticism intensifies after big oil admits ‘gaslighting’ public over green aims

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      Criticism intensifies after big oil admits ‘gaslighting’ public over green aimsFury as ‘explosive’ files reveal largest oil companies contradicted public statements and wished bedbugs upon critical activists Criticism in the US of the oil industry’s obfuscation over the climate crisis is intensifying after internal documents showed companies attempted to distance themselves from agreed climate goals, admitted “gaslighting” the public over purported efforts to go green, and even wished critical activists be infested by bedbugs.The communications were unveiled as part of a congressional hearing held in Washington DC, where an investigation into the role of fossil fuels in driving the climate crisis produced documents obtained from the oil giants ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP.“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they wish bedbugs on you, then you win,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of Sunrise. The organization accused Shell of a “legacy of violence and of ignoring the wellbeing of communities across the globe”.Pakistan floods ‘made up to 50% worse by global heating’Read moreThe revelations are part of the third hearing held by the House committee on oversight and reform on how the fossil-fuel industry sought to hamper the effort to address the climate crisis. Democrats, who lead the committee, called top executives from the oil companies to testify last year, in which they denied they had misled the public.The new documents are “the latest evidence that oil giants keep lying about their commitments to help solve the climate crisis and should never be trusted by policymakers”, said Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity.“If there is one thing consistent about the oil and gas majors’ position on climate, it’s their utter inability to tell the truth,” Wiles added.Ro Khanna, co-chair of the committee, said the new documents are “explosive” and show a “culture of intense disrespect” to climate activists. The oil giants’ “climate pledges rely on unproven technology, accounting gimmicks and misleading language to hide the reality,” he added. “Big oil executives are laughing at the people trying to protect our planet while they knowingly work to destroy it.”Several of the emails and memos within the released trove of documents appear to show executives, staffers and lobbyists internally contradicting public pronouncements by their companies to act on lowering planet-heating emissions.Exxon, which recently announced profits of $17.9bn for the three months until June, more than three times what it earned in the same quarter a year ago, has publicly said it is “committed” to the Paris climate agreement to curb global heating.However, the documents released by the Democratic-led House committee include an August 2019 memo by an executive to Darren Woods, Exxon’s chief executive, on the need to “remove reference to Paris agreement” from an announcement by an industry lobby group that Exxon is a member of.Such a statement “could create a potential commitment to advocate on the Paris agreement goals”, the executive warned. A separate note on a 2018 Exxon presentation also admitted that biofuels derived from algae was still “decades away from the scale we need”, despite the company long promoting it as a way to lower emissions.Shell, meanwhile, has committed to becoming a “net zero” emissions business by 2050, and yet the documents show a private 2020 communication in which employees are urged to never “imply, suggest, or leave it open for possible misinterpretation that (net zero) is a Shell goal or target”. Shell has “no immediate plans to move to a net-zero emissions portfolio” over the next 10 to 20 years, it added.A Shell tweet posted in 2020 asking others what they could do to reduce emissions resulted in a torrent of ridicule from Twitter users. A communications executive for the company wrote privately that criticism that the tweet was “gaslighting” the public was “not totally without merit” and that the tweet was “pretty tone deaf”. He added: “We are, after all, in a tweet like this implying others need to sacrifice without focusing on ourselves.”The UK-headquartered oil company, which in July announced a record $11.5bn quarterly profit, also poured scorn on climate activists, with a communications specialist at the company emailing in 2019 that he wished “bedbugs” upon the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led US climate group.Previous releases of internal documents have shown that the oil industry knew of the devastating impact of climate change but chose instead to downplay and even deny these findings publicly in order to maintain their business model.The hearings have been attacked by Republicans as a method to “wage war on America’s energy producers” and the oil companies involved have complained that the documents don’t show the full picture of their stance on the climate crisis.Exxon supports the 2015 Paris climate deal, a spokesman said, claiming that the “selective publication of dated emails, without context, is a deliberate attempt to generate a narrative that does not reflect the commitment of ExxonMobil and its employees, to address climate change and play a leading role in the transition to a net-zero future.”A Shell spokesman, meanwhile, said the committee chose to highlight only a small handful of the nearly half a million pages it provided to the body on its “extensive efforts” to take part in the energy transition.“Within that pursuit are challenging internal and external discussions that signal Shell’s intent to form partnerships and share pathways we deem critical to becoming a net-zero energy business,” he said.TopicsClimate crisisUS politicsFossil fuelsOilnewsReuse this content More

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      Republicans planning legal assault on climate disclosure rules for public companies

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      Republicans planning legal assault on climate disclosure rules for public companiesThe SEC’s proposed new rules, which would require public corporations to disclose climate-related information, have been critized by industry groups Republican officials and corporate lobby groups are teeing up a multi-pronged legal assault on the Biden administration’s effort to help investors hold public corporations accountable for their carbon emissions and other climate change risks.The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed new climate disclosure rules in March that would require public companies to report the climate-related impact and risks to their businesses.The regulator has since received more than 14,500 comments. Submissions from 24 Republican state attorneys general and some of the country’s most powerful industry associations suggest that these groups are preparing a series of legal challenges after the regulation is finalized, which could happen as soon as next month.“I would expect a litigation challenge to be brought immediately once the final rule is released,” Jill E Fisch, a business law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told the Guardian. “They probably have their complaints already drafted, and they’re ready to file.”Some opponents claim that requiring companies to publish climate-related information infringes on their right to free speech. Others (often the same ones) say that the rule exceeds the SEC’s legal authority.Both critiques feature prominently in comments from the Republican attorneys general and the US Chamber of Commerce, which spent more than $35m lobbying the federal government in the first half of 2022, according to OpenSecrets. The Republican letter warns that if the new disclosure requirements are finalized, “capitalism will fall by the wayside.”The SEC proposal does not establish environmental policy or require that companies take any climate-related actions other than making more information publicly available.The free speech and legal authority objections have been met with profound skepticism from legal experts and former SEC officials.In a letter to the commission, John Coates, a Harvard Law School professor and former SEC general counsel, said that instead of challenging the climate disclosure rule on its merits, “critics have resorted to mischaracterizing the proposal, and inventing their own, fictional rule”.How a top US business lobby promised climate action – but worked to block effortsRead moreIn another letter, a bipartisan group of former SEC officials, legal scholars, securities law experts and corporate lawyers noted that “the SEC has mandated environmental disclosure at least as far back as the Nixon administration.” Even though not all of the letter’s authors support the substance of the rulemaking, they agreed without exception “that there is no legal basis to doubt the commission’s authority to mandate public-company disclosures related to climate.”“The SEC is promulgating a disclosure rule that’s square within its wheelhouse,” said Fisch, of the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s exactly what Congress told it to do, and which it has done consistently since 1933.”But the legal authority and free speech charges, however tenuous, are not the only grounds on which opponents of the climate disclosure rule have hinted at litigation.In a recent analysis, the Guardian revealed how the Business Roundtable, a lobbying group for CEOs of America’s biggest companies, opposes a key provision of the SEC proposal that would require some large companies to measure and report emissions generated throughout their supply chains – known as Scope 3 emissions.Chart showing the difference between Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions.In addition to challenging the substance of the rule, the Business Roundtable also rejects the SEC’s estimate of how much it would cost businesses to comply. (The organization said in an email that its comments “[are] focused on identifying challenges in the proposed rule in the hopes the SEC will address them.”)The SEC projects that companies will face compliance costs of $490,000 to $640,000 in the first year of climate reporting, and less in subsequent years. (By comparison, a 2019 study predicted that climate change could cost firms around $1trn over the following five years.)A detailed assessment from Shivaram Rajgopal, Columbia Business School professor of accounting and auditing, concluded that even without taking into account any benefits from the climate disclosure rule, the costs would prove negligible for most firms. “The loss in market capitalization, if any, from compliance costs is likely too tiny for any outsider to detect and to separate from daily volatility in the stock returns for unrelated reasons,” Rajgopal wrote.Last quarter ExxonMobil earned nearly $18bn in profit, the largest quarterly earning in the company’s history. Over the same period, General Motors generated more than $35bn in revenue, while Walmart reported revenues of nearly $153bn. The Economist recently reported that after-tax corporate profits as a share of the US economy have surged to their highest level since the 1940s.ExxonMobil, GM and Walmart are members of the US Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable. According to a report from the nonprofit Center for Political Accountability, during the 2020 election cycle each company donated at least $125,000 to the Republican Attorneys General Association, which supports the political campaigns and legal agendas of GOP attorneys general across the country.In their letter to the SEC, 24 of these attorneys general called the commission’s cost-benefit analysis “woefully unfinished” and warned that finalizing the climate disclosure rules “will undoubtedly draw legal challenges”.The Business Roundtable, meanwhile, described the analysis as “fundamentally flawed” and said that its member companies “believe [the costs of the rule] will be orders of magnitude more than what the SEC estimates.” The chamber issued a similar condemnation, writing in its voluminous submission that the SEC’s “economic analysis … is incomplete and substantially underestimates compliance costs.”Asked to comment, neither organization responded specifically to questions of whether it planned to pursue legal action against the SEC if the final rule is not changed significantly.Trade associations might be expected to instinctively oppose new regulations, but in the past such statements have proven to be more than routine political rhetoric. On multiple occasions in response to prior rulemakings, the chamber and the Business Roundtable have successfully sued the SEC on cost-benefit grounds.In 2011, following a suit filed by the two groups, the DC circuit struck down an SEC rule that would have made it easier for shareholders to consider new board members for public companies, deeming the rule “arbitrary and capricious”. The decision in Business Roundtable v SEC said that the commission “neglected its statutory obligation to assess the economic consequences of its rule”, citing, among other figures, a cost estimate submitted to the SEC by the chamber.In their comments on the climate disclosure proposal, the Republican attorneys general and the chamber each cite Business Roundtable v SEC in claiming that the SEC’s cost-benefit analysis is flawed.The Republican letter is co-led by Patrick Morrisey, the West Virginia attorney general who recently helmed a successful legal challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).In West Virginia v EPA, the Supreme Court endorsed a relatively novel legal notion – the so-called “major questions doctrine” – to halt an EPA effort to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. As the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists explained, “Under this doctrine, when a regulation crosses a certain threshold of being ‘major’ – a line which remains poorly defined – the court rejects the regulation unless it has been clearly authorized by Congress.”The major questions doctrine looks to be the basis of Morrisey’s campaign against the climate disclosure rule. In a July TV appearance, Morrisey said that the Biden administration “can’t get the congressional majorities behind their policies, so they’re trying to resort to the [regulations]. But as we saw with West Virginia v EPA, I don’t think the courts are going to let that happen.” (Morrisey’s office did not respond to emails requesting comment.)“I don’t think there’s any natural reason to infer that the court’s decision [in West Virginia v EPA] would have any implications for the SEC,” said the University of Pennsylvania’s Jill Fisch. “At the same time, you can read the West Virginia case, and you can say: ‘This is part of the Supreme Court, and the federal courts generally, taking a different look at government agencies. This is cutting back on the fourth branch, on the power of the administrative state.’ And if that’s true, in theory, everything is up for grabs.”“Historical legal precedent suggests that the SEC has a pretty strong case,” Tyler Gellasch, the president and CEO of the nonprofit Healthy Markets Association, said. “But if you’re the Business Roundtable, you don’t necessarily need historical legal precedent on your side. You just need a court today. And that seems far more likely today than it would have been at any time in modern history.”TopicsClimate crisisBiden administrationSecurities and Exchange CommissionUS politicsReuse this content More

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      ‘Transformational’: could America’s new green bank be a climate gamechanger?

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      ‘Transformational’: could America’s new green bank be a climate gamechanger?Long championed by climate activists, the green bank would provide funding to expand clean energy use across the US Buried on page 667 of the Inflation Reduction Act is a climate policy that has been in the making for more than a decade.The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund provides $27bn in funding for projects aimed at lowering America’s planet-heating emissions. Some of those funds, roughly $7bn, will be dedicated to clean energy deployment in low-income communities – but the vast majority of the funds will be used to create America’s first national green bank, an initiative long championed by climate activists. Those activists hope that the national green bank, which will provide ongoing financial assistance to expand the use of clean energy across the country, will accelerate America’s transition away from fossil fuels.TopicsUS politicsAmerica’s dirty divideClimate crisisBiden administrationfeaturesReuse this content More

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      ‘I want to work with everyone’: Alaska’s history-making new congresswoman

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      Interview‘I want to work with everyone’: Alaska’s history-making new congresswomanMaanvi Singh in Anchorage Mary Peltola, the first Alaska Native elected to Congress, having defeated former vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, is a relentless coalition builderAhead of her astonishing victory this week in a special election to fill Alaska’s sole congressional seat, Mary Peltola was delighted to get recognized at Costco. “I was approached by some people to do a selfie,” she laughed.It seemed like months of traversing the state for meet-and greets was paying off. “I am getting recognized more.”Wind in Democrats’ sails as Sarah Palin humbled in Alaska special electionRead moreNow, people all over the US are learning her name. Peltola, who is Yup’ik Eskimo, will make history as the first Alaska Native to represent the state in Congress, and as the first Democrat to hold the seat in nearly 50 years.On Wednesday, she prevailed over the Trump-endorsed former vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin and Republican party-backed Nick Begich III – in a state that favoured Trump by 10 points in 2020. She will serve out the remainder of the late Republican congressman Don Young’s term.A former state legislator and fisheries manager, Peltola campaigned as a relentlessly amicable coalition builder. “I want to work with everyone and anyone who is a reasonable person to find solutions to Alaska’s challenges,” she said.In a race where Palin’s celebrity – and her self-described “right-winging, bitter-clinging” attack dog energy – loomed large in the media and in voters’ minds, Peltola would often bring up her warm relationship with Palin. She’d talk about how both she and Palin were pregnant at the same time, while Peltola was serving as a legislator and Palin was governor. “Our teenagers are just a month apart,” she said. Before Palin left to campaign as Republican John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 elections, she bequeathed Peltola her backyard trampoline.Resolute nicenessPeltola was born in 1973, the year that Young was elected to office, and her father was a friend of the late congressman. While Young – a bombastic character with a taxidermy-stuffed office, a reputation for making racist and sexist jokes and a zeal for oil – was very much a contrast to Peltola, in demeanour and philosophy, voters in Anchorage nonetheless said they shared a sense of pragmatic bipartisanship.In 2010, Peltola helped to run the write-in campaign for Lisa Murkowski, the Republican senator with an independent streak now fighting for her political life after she voted for Trump’s impeachment.First elected to the state legislature in 1998, Peltola built a reputation for resolute niceness. She helped build the Bush Caucus – a bipartisan group of legislators representing the most rural and remote parts of the state – and showed a knack for winning over even her most conservative colleagues to advance policies on natural resource management and infrastructure.Peltola’s own politics diverge from the Republicans she is often willing to work with. In the US House race, she was the only candidate who endorsed abortion rights. “Alaska Natives have a history of forced sterilisation against their knowledge or consent,” she said. “People should have to build their families the way, when and how they choose. And for that to be infringed on is very troubling.”A majority of Alaskans support the right to choose – and after the supreme court decision to revoke the constitutional right to abortion access, the issue has energized voters in the Last Frontier as it has in other parts of the country.Peltola’s policies on climate adaptation also reflect the nuanced realities of Alaska – a state whose economy is intricately entwined with the oil and gas industry and whose people live at the Arctic edge of the climate crisis. Alaska is losing glacier ice faster than anywhere else in the world. “In the near term, we are tied to oil and gas. And in the near term, that is how we are paying our bills as Alaskans,” Peltola said. But “I have seen firsthand the effects of climate change across Alaska. We had over 250 wildfires this summer before June, we had the largest tundra fire we’ve ever seen in May.” Fisheries and salmon stock, which many Alaskans depend on for sustenance, are suffering, she added.Her platform focused on investment in renewable energy and a gradual transition for Alaska’s economy.A focus on bipartisanship could pay offIt remains unclear if Peltola’s moderate way will pave her path to victory in November when she’ll be running again in the race to serve the next full, two-year term in Congress. Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system, which the state tried for the first time with the special election, could be shaped as much by Alaskans’ scepticism about Palin as their support for Peltola.But in a state that tends to elect a Republican but where the majority of voters declare no party preference, her focus on bipartisanship could pay off.“We all have to help each other out if we’re going to survive. That’s the fundamental nature of Alaskans,” said Ivan Moore, an Anchorage-based pollster who has been tracking Peltola’s rise in Alaska politics. “We can be political assholes, just like everywhere else. But when push comes to shove, when it’s life and death, Alaskans will help each other. And I think Mary tapped into that.”“She speaks in a language that connects people,” said Shirley Mae Springer Staten, 76, an Anchorage-based arts educator who supported Peltola. “There’s a new wave of unkindness in politics these days, and I like that Mary Peltola pushes against that.”News of her victory this week came on Peltola’s 49th birthday – a “GOOD DAY”, she tweeted shortly after the elections division released preliminary results.Now more people know who she is. But she’s sticking with what works. “Support a regular Alaskan,” is the slogan.TopicsAlaskaDemocratsUS politicsSarah PalinClimate crisisinterviewsReuse this content More

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      Polling shows that US voters favor climate bills – yet assume fellow Americans don’t | Adrienne Matei

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      Polling shows that US voters favor climate bills – yet assume fellow Americans don’tAdrienne MateiPart of the key to collective action may be to overcome the ‘false social reality’ that makes us assume no one else cares about the climate America is polarized, but a new study has revealed one issue on which the nation is surprisingly united: mitigating climate change.Yet Americans themselves underestimate the US population’s concern for the state of the climate and support for major climate mitigation policies – by a whopping 80–90%, according to researchers from Boston College, Princeton University and Indiana University Bloomington.In a peer-reviewed article, researchers shared the results of a nationwide survey of 6,000 Americans, for which participants were asked to estimate the percentage of Americans who were “at least somewhat concerned about climate change”. Participants also estimated the percentage of Americans they thought supported specific climate policies including carbon taxes for fossil fuel companies, renewable energy mandates, building renewable energy projects on public lands, and a Green New Deal.Regardless of political orientation, education, age, race, media preferences and income, the study found all Americans vastly underestimate how much their compatriots care about climate change and support green policies.“Climate policy and concern about climate change are much more prevalent than you think in the US,” one of the study’s authors, Gregg Sparkman, told Scientific American. “And virtually everyone in the country seems to greatly underestimate how popular climate policy is and to underestimate how concerned their fellow Americans are about climate change.”Despite polls by Yale’s Program on Climate Change Communication showing that a “supermajority” of 66–80% of Americans support these climate policies, the average American estimates that only a minority of 37–43% of the public are down for the eco cause. Republicans proved especially pessimistic about how much people care about climate change, though virtually half of Republicans are pro-climate policies, says Sparkman. In truth, the issue of securing a livable future appears to enjoy bipartisan support.It turns out that the feeling of being alienated in one’s concern for the environment is as widespread as it is unfounded. In fact, this study captures a phenomenon known as “pluralistic ignorance”, a shared misconception of the thoughts and behaviors of others. In this case, pluralistic ignorance results in what the authors call a “false social reality” in which many of us perceive that others aren’t willing to take action on climate issues, and overestimate how many Americans are indifferent to, or in denial of, climate change.Ending the misconception that most Americans don’t care about climate change and truly appreciating how popular eco-friendly policies are could give such measures valuable momentum and support, and encourage politicians to pursue greener agendas. Moreover, understanding that there’s nothing fringe about caring about the environment could help people feel more confident discussing their green politics with peers. The perception that people are unified in the desire for pro-climate legislation is a powerful thing – it becomes easier to take action when we know that people actually support collective solutions.The reassurance that we are all on the same side when it comes to reducing the effects of climate change could also help us manage climate anxiety and feel more optimistic about the future. Young people are especially struggling with the latter; a 2021 Bath University survey of more than 10,000 teens and young adults across 10 countries found that 75% believe “the future is frightening”, with researchers linking youth psychological distress to government inaction on climate change.Published in the wake of Democrats’ passing of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act, a $369bn investment in renewable energy and emissions reduction, this research suggests Americans are united in the fight against climate change, and that’s a good thing. Have no misconceptions about it: mitigating climate change will require a collective effort.
      Adrienne Matei is a freelance journalist
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      How a top US business lobby promised climate action – but worked to block efforts

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      How a top US business lobby promised climate action – but worked to block efforts Business Roundtable aims to weaken efforts that would enable investors to hold companies accountable for their climate promisesThree years ago today, in a statement that would be described as “historic”, “monumental” and “revolutionary”, America’s most powerful and politically connected corporations promised to “protect the environment by embracing sustainable practices across our businesses”.The “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation” came from the Business Roundtable, an influential Washington DC lobbying group whose 200-plus members include the chief executives of some of the world’s biggest companies, including Apple, Pepsi, Walmart and Google.Today, on the statement’s third anniversary, the Business Roundtable and its member CEOs continue to issue earnest statements about the climate crisis. But the organization is also working diligently – and spending liberally – to weaken efforts that would enable investors to hold companies accountable for their climate promises.An analysis by the Guardian found the lobby group has worked hard to protect a status quo in which corporations:
      Generate goodwill and positive PR by publishing bold climate goals, with little fear of being held accountable or legally liable for achieving those goals.
      Can choose to selectively disclose certain parts of their carbon footprint, or none at all.
      Are not required to reveal the greenhouse gas emissions generated throughout their supply chains – which, for most companies, make up the majority of their emissions.
      Make high-profile pledges to fight climate change, while paying to maintain memberships in the Business Roundtable and other trade associations that spend millions of dollars to lobby governments against meaningful climate action.
      In public the Business Roundtable’s leaders are still committed to change. Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart and previous chair of the Business Roundtable, has called the climate crisis “one of the greatest challenges facing the planet today”. In a statement on the group’s website, Mary Barra, the CEO of GM and the Roundtable’s current chair, declared that “we must act” to tackle climate change. “Meeting the scope of this challenge will require collective global action – business and government,” Barra said.The challenge “isn’t the lack of business commitment” said Johnson Controls CEO George Oliver in a video published by the Business Roundtable in January. “What we need is to be aligned with the public sector to make sure that we’ve got the proper policies in place that will enable us to do what we do so well.”Yet when the US government has tried to put the “proper policies” in place, the Business Roundtable has worked to undermine those efforts.In 2021, the organization spent millions of dollars to stop the Biden administration’s Build Back Better agenda, which included significant efforts to reduce carbon emissions and promote clean energy.And this year, after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a long-anticipated rule that would require publicly held companies to disclose their carbon emissions and the risks that climate change poses to their business models, the Business Roundtable declared its opposition to central aspects of the SEC proposal, including provisions that experts say are vital for the rule to give investors comparable and consistent information about corporations’ climate risks.Before releasing the proposed rules in March, the SEC had asked the public what such rules might look like. In its response, the Business Roundtable acknowledged that “climate challenges are creating growing risks in many parts of the economy” and deemed it “appropriate” for the SEC to regulate climate disclosures.The group noted that the present system of corporate climate reporting, in which some companies issue voluntary climate-related disclosures, has proven inadequate. “There are many conflicting demands on companies to provide disclosures under different frameworks, which is unnecessarily costly and time-consuming for companies,” the Business Roundtable’s comments read.But when the SEC shifted from requesting voluntary input to proposing mandatory requirements for climate disclosures, the organization appeared to change its tune. In a 17-page letter, the CEO lobby announced its opposition to the proposal and asked the commission to “revise and repropose the rule.”In an email to the Guardian, the Business Roundtable denied that its perspective had changed. “[Business Roundtable] members are committed to combating climate change and are supportive of a rulemaking. Our goal is for a pragmatic, attainable, and successful rule,” the group said. “Our members believe it is worth the extra time on the front end to repropose the rule.”Since April 2021, according to meeting memoranda published by the SEC, the Business Roundtable has met at least three times with the SEC about climate disclosures. (GM’s Barra, the chair of the Business Roundtable, also met separately with SEC chair Gary Gensler.)In the first half of this year, the group spent more than $9.1m lobbying the federal government directly, according to reports compiled by Open Secrets. In its public disclosures, the Roundtable reported lobbying Congress, the White House and the SEC about the climate disclosure proposal. (In an email, the Business Roundtable said it “met with the SEC to directly communicate our concerns” and “shared our point of view with members of Congress and administration officials.”)Despite asking for a new, and thus delayed, proposal, the organization’s own members continue to assure the public that they see the climate crisis as an urgent challenge. “We’re out of time,” Cummins CEO and Business Roundtable member Tom Linebarger said in the organization’s January climate video. “We’re getting ready, to get ready, to get ready to do things. And the problem is that we have to move now.”But “now”, it seems, does not mean now.One provision the Business Roundtable has rejected as “unworkable” is a requirement for companies to measure and report the greenhouse gas emissions generated by suppliers and customers throughout their supply chains, or what are known as “Scope 3” emissions. The provision would apply only to companies that have published emissions targets that include Scope 3, or for which supply-chain emissions are considered “material”.Scope 3 includes all greenhouse gas emissions that companies neither generate directly (Scope 1) nor purchase for their own energy needs (Scope 2), which means everything from the raw materials that go into creating a product to the transportation that delivers that product to a consumer.For most companies, Scope 3 emissions represent the majority of their carbon output. As Addisu Lashitew, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, has pointed out, more than three-quarters of Amazon’s 2021 emissions were considered Scope 3.Diagram showing Scope 3 emissions are everything indirectly related to productionThe Business Roundtable supports mandating Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions disclosures, and many companies already report them, in part because these direct emissions are easier to calculate and easier to reduce (sometimes through the purchase of dubious carbon “offsets”).Perhaps more importantly, however, because most firms’ emissions are primarily Scope 3, limiting their reporting to Scopes 1 and 2 makes them appear greener.In its comments to the SEC, the Business Roundtable called the proposal to require companies to measure and report Scope 3 emissions “overly burdensome” because “many companies still have limited systems in place to identify and disclose Scope 3 emissions” and some aspects of reporting value-chain emissions “remain[] challenging”.But “if you don’t have Scope 3 as a requirement, then what you have effectively done is cut out most of the emissions from the top-emitting industries,” Allison Herren Lee, the former acting chair and commissioner of the SEC, told the Guardian. “With emissions arguably being the most important item of disclosure for investors, how is a rule without Scope 3 going to achieve what investors need?”“There is an inherent degree of uncertainty in some of the data the proposal would require companies to disclose, and much of it is largely outside their control,” the Business Roundtable said in an email.A number of experts familiar with the SEC’s climate disclosure rulemaking acknowledged that tracking and reporting Scope 3 emissions could indeed be difficult for some companies, or at least more difficult than not doing so.But they suggested that the more fundamental question was not whether complying with the SEC’s rules would be more difficult than doing nothing, but rather if doing so would provide investors with information that they have requested and that would help them make more informed investment decisions.This argument would appear to align with the stated position of the Business Roundtable, which has repeatedly expressed its support for “market-based” efforts to address climate change, a view it reiterated in its comments to the SEC.“Information is the lifeblood of the capital markets, and capital markets are a central institution of a capitalist market economy,” George S Georgiev, a professor at Emory University and an expert on securities law, told the Guardian. “Climate-related financial information is demanded by investors, not by environmentalists.”Moreover, “there is no unanimity that Scope 3 reporting is problematic”, Georgiev said, noting that Apple, whose CEO, Tim Cook, sits on the Business Roundtable’s board of directors, is among the companies that have endorsed the SEC’s Scope 3 requirement. Apple’s existing reporting “attest[s] to the feasibility of reasonably modeling, measuring, and reporting on all three scopes of emissions, including scope 3 emissions,” the company told the Commission.In its comments, the Business Roundtable said that its member companies had already set a “high bar…for voluntary ESG [environmental, social and governance] disclosures,” and that a voluntary approach to climate reporting was already “providing more valuable information for investors”.But many investors, analysts, academics, voters and experts – even companies themselves – disagree. “There is near-universal agreement among scholars that voluntary disclosure rules alone are not sufficient,” Emory’s Georgiev said. “The same logic applies to climate rules.”“Climate is one of the most significant risks facing companies and investors,” said Danielle Fugere, the president and chief counsel of As You Sow, a shareholder advocacy nonprofit. “For companies to say that it is too costly to gather Scope 1 through 3 data, we simply think that it shows signs of weak management.”In a March letter, a group of investors managing nearly $5tn of assets warned that failing to require companies to disclose their Scope 3 emissions would render the SEC rules doubly ineffective: insufficient for addressing the climate emergency, and inadequate for providing investors with useful information, because voluntary figures allow companies to publish only the information that paints them in the best light.“There is a great amount of confusion,” Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said in a speech last year. “If we are really going to tackle this, if we want to have 100% participation, the easiest way you could do that is having unified standards.” Fink is also a member of the Business Roundtable.In an email, the Roundtable said it was “unlikely” that the proposed Scope 3 disclosure provisions “would result in comparable, investor-useful information”. The group “believes it’s important to have reliable climate risk and emissions data, and our companies are leaders when it comes to transparency.”The group’s objections to the SEC’s Scope 3 requirements are only one aspect of its multi-tiered opposition to the proposed climate disclosure rules. And its opposition to the proposed rules is, similarly, only one example of many in which it has rejected efforts to hold its member companies accountable for their social and environmental pledges.In the three years since the organization released the “purpose of a corporation” statement, a number of studies have shown that Business Roundtable companies have failed to follow through on their “fundamental commitment to all of [their] stakeholders”.One analysis from London Business School and Columbia Business School found that companies whose CEOs signed the 2019 statement subsequently received more federal environmental infractions and had higher carbon emissions than similar firms that did not sign the statement.In another study, two Harvard Law School professors reviewed more than 600 public documents filed by Business Roundtable companies since the statement’s publication. Time and time again, the researchers found that when firms were presented with an opportunity to formalize the pledge in their corporate governance, they declined.In addition, by advocating and lobbying against government action on issues like climate change, the Business Roundtable gives its members space to publicly endorse (and claim credit for endorsing) legislative and regulatory action – such as Apple’s support for mandatory Scope 3 reporting, or Cummins and GM’s support for Build Back Better –all while knowing that the Roundtable will work behind the scenes in opposition.“Some individual companies aren’t going to write in and rage against the proposal because they know that will raise concerns with their investors, so they let some of the trade groups do that work for them,” said Allison Herren Lee, the SEC’s former acting chair and commissioner.In its comments to the SEC, the Business Roundtable urged lawmakers to take the lead on tackling the climate crisis, arguing that “although important, disclosures simply will not solve the problem”.“These are complex issues that need to be solved through the legislative process,” the group wrote.But the Business Roundtable continues to oppose efforts to address the climate emergency through the legislative process. The latest effort to tackle the climate crisis, the Inflation Reduction Act, includes billions of dollars in clean energy tax incentives, paid for in part by making sure corporations pay at least a 15% tax rate on profits. The bill could cut America’s carbon emissions by 40% by 2030.Yet on 6 August, just shy of the third anniversary of the statement in which Business Roundtable CEOs committed to “protect[ing] the environment by embracing sustainable practices across our businesses”, the group declared its opposition to the bill, citing “tax provisions that would undermine American economic growth and competitiveness”.“I’m just so worried that our planet can no longer suffer from us debating and debating and debating,” said Cummins CEO Tom Linebarger, who, like all the CEOs named in this article, signed the 2019 statement. “It’s the existential crisis of our time.”TopicsClimate crisisApplePepsicoGoogleUS politicsanalysisReuse this content More

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      ‘Biggest step forward on climate ever’: Biden signs Democrats’ landmark bill

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      ‘Biggest step forward on climate ever’: Biden signs Democrats’ landmark billParty leaders hope approval of Inflation Reduction Act will boost their prospects in the midterm elections this November Joe Biden signed Democrats’ healthcare, climate and tax package on Tuesday, putting the final seal of approval on a landmark bill that party leaders hope will boost their prospects in the midterm elections this November.During a bill-signing ceremony at the White House, the US president celebrated the bill as a historic piece of legislation that would reduce healthcare costs for millions of Americans and help address the climate crisis.“With this law, the American people won and the special interests lost,” Biden said. “Today offers further proof that the soul of America is vibrant, the future of America is bright and the promise of America is real and just beginning.”The signing came four days after the House passed the bill, formally known as the Inflation Reduction Act, in a party-line vote of 220 to 207. The bill had previously passed the Senate in a party-line vote of 51 to 50, with Vice-President Kamala Harris breaking the tie in the evenly divided chamber.The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act capped off more than a year of negotiations among Democrats, after the bill’s predecessor, the Build Back Better Act, stalled in the Senate due to opposition from one of the party’s centrist members, Joe Manchin.The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, spent months quietly negotiating with Manchin over a more narrow spending package, resulting in the Inflation Reduction Act.While the Build Back Better Act was much larger in scope, Democrats have still celebrated the climate and healthcare provisions included in their compromise bill.The law directs $369bn toward investing in renewable energy and reducing America’s planet-heating emissions, marking the country’s most significant effort yet to combat the climate crisis. Experts have estimated the bill could reduce US emissions by about 40% by 2030, compared with 2005 levels, close to Biden’s goal of cutting emissions in half by the end of the decade.“This bill is the biggest step forward on climate ever,” Biden said Tuesday. “It’s going to allow us to boldly take additional steps toward meeting all of my climate goals, the ones we set out when we ran.”In terms of healthcare provisions, the bill will allow Medicare to start negotiating the price of certain expensive drugs and will cap out-of-pocket prescription drug costs at $2,000 a year for those in the government insurance program for seniors and some with disability status. It will also alleviate premium hikes for those who receive insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, the federal program informally known as Obamacare.The cost of the legislation is covered through a series of tax changes, which are expected to bring in hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue for the US government. Those changes include a new corporate minimum tax, a 1% excise tax on stock buybacks and enhanced enforcement from the Internal Revenue Service targeting high-income households.After the House passage of the bill last Friday, Democratic party leaders took to the airwaves to tout the benefits of the legislation, promising that it would help ease the financial burden for Americans struggling under the weight of record-high inflation.“It’s making sure that billionaires in corporate America are paying their fair share, making sure that the tax code is a little bit more fair,” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told ABC News on Sunday. “When you put it in its totality, you will see that it will lower the deficit, which will help fight inflation.”But Republicans have dismissed Democrats’ arguments that the bill will help ease inflation, accusing them of ramming through a reckless spending spree that will do little to aid working Americans.“[Democrats’] response to the runaway inflation they’ve created is a bill that experts say will not meaningfully cut inflation at all,” the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, said earlier this month. “Democrats have proven over and over they simply do not care about middle-class families’ priorities.”According to a report issued by Moody’s Analytics, Democrats’ spending package will “modestly reduce inflation over the 10-year budget horizon”. But regardless of the bill’s impact, there have been some signs that inflation may be cooling off.US inflation hit an annual rate of 8.5% last month, which represented a slight decrease from the 40-year high of 9.1% recorded in June. If inflation does indeed start to taper off and Democrats can sell the passage of their spending package on the campaign trail, it could help them prevent widespread losses in the midterm elections this November.“I’ve been prepared to win the midterms all along. It depends on getting out the vote. This probably could be helpful,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said of the bill’s passage last week. “But I do know it will be helpful to America’s working families, and that’s our purpose.”TopicsJoe BidenUS politicsUS domestic policyClimate crisisUS healthcarenewsReuse this content More

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      The Guardian view on Biden’s green deal: leadership after Trump’s denialism | Editorial

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      The Guardian view on Biden’s green deal: leadership after Trump’s denialismEditorialThe first major climate law passed in the US comes not a moment too soon for a burning planet When the House of Representatives passed landmark climate legislation on Friday, Joe Biden chalked up one of the surprise successes of his presidency. Only last month his ambitious agenda appeared sunk after a conservative Democrat and coal baron, Joe Manchin, refused to back it. His vote is crucial in an evenly divided Senate. However, the climate proposals were largely resurrected in the form of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), co-authored by Mr Manchin, which Congress approved.The first major US climate law comes not a moment too soon. It is the country’s best and last opportunity to meet its goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and, with it, a world where net zero by mid-century is possible. After Donald Trump, Mr Biden can reclaim the mantle of global climate leadership for the US. But the act reveals the limits of his power.The Democrats’ initial $3.5tn plan was to expand education, fight poverty, lower healthcare costs and tackle climate change. That was whittled down to a $1.75tn bill that the House passed last year. But it got nowhere in the Senate. Mr Manchin refused to back the social security programmes and his centrist colleague Kyrsten Sinema refused to back the tax rises. What was left was $490bn in climate and healthcare investments.This deserves a small cheer from progressives. Mr Biden is pursuing a muscular policy of state intervention in the economy. The act for the first time gives the federal government the power to negotiate lower drug prices. Significantly for the climate, it represents a new US industrial policy that subsidises zero-carbon power production via tax credits. It also recognises that the US is falling behind China in green technology – spending $152bn less on renewable investments last year – and focuses on ways to encourage clean-energy manufacturing.Politics in the US is unfortunately far too influenced by the power of vested interests. The US remains addicted to fossil fuels, which generate 61% of its electricity. Its shale gas industry is looking to replace Russia as the major energy supplier to Europe. The upshot was that fossil fuel lobbyists won concessions in the climate legislation. The compromise means linking renewable development to new oil and gas extraction for which many communities will bear the disproportionate cost.Nevertheless, for every one tonne of emissions caused by the act’s fossil fuel provisions, the non-partisan Energy Innovation thinktank says 24 tonnes of emissions are avoided by its green provisions. This ought to help energise Mr Biden’s base ahead of the midterm elections. Despite Republican antagonism, climate action enjoys broad support in the US. A Pew Research Center poll suggests that 58% of voters think the federal government is doing too little to “reduce the effects of global climate change, compared with just 18% who say it is doing too much”.To be a truly transformative president, Mr Biden will need to remake society. What the act demonstrates is that he does not have the votes – yet – in his own party for such a programme. Mr Biden’s climate plans may fall short because he is relying on the carrot of spending rather than the stick of taxes to underpin an energy transition. Yet the wasteful consumption of the wealthy will have to be reduced with progressive taxation to make resources available for socially-useful spending. Ultimately the climate emergency needs a fundamental economic restructuring. Mr Biden’s new environmental law is a good start, but there’s a very long way to go.TopicsClimate crisisOpinionUS politicsJoe BidenNancy PelosiDemocratsRepublicanseditorialsReuse this content More