Global Climate Change: Fact or Fiction? It Doesn’t Matter — The Issue is Here to Stay

Never mind the science, Kyoto, or regulations. Perception of climate change’s urgency by governments, consumers, and markets increasingly will govern corporate policy on the matter. This briefing paper weighs the evidence and concludes that scientific proof or not, the climate change issue will not go away. Moreover, “it will increasingly affect the way business is done.” The “good news,” says the report, is that “by effectively meeting the challenge of climate change, businesses will also deal effectively with several other issues (energy costs, reliability, and volatility) that affect competitiveness. New business opportunities will very likely be discovered in the process. Forward-looking business managers who approach climate change from this prospective can expect to gain long-term competitive advantage as a result.”