The Demand for Climate Leadership

By Christopher A. Porto

Leaders with the capability of handling the issues posed by climate change are in
high demand. The role of these leaders will be to get climate policy passed by
government at every level of society and carbon strategies adopted by corporations so as
to manage our global greenhouse gas emissions. With strong climate leadership at the
helm, our chances of achieving the economic and environmental sustainability that we all
desire will greatly increase.

Climate Change

The evidence proving that our planet’s climate is in fact changing is overwhelming.
We have reached a point in the debate on climate change where the emphasis has shifted
from a position of questioning its validity to one of actually solving the problem. The
climate crisis is the first truly global issue that the human race has had to deal with as a
collective body. Although this challenge must be faced by every nation individually, the
only way to overcome it will be to come together in higher forms of organization. The
world leaders that we have elected to make decisions on our behalf must undertake a
whole systems change approach to both their own country and to our global society.
By appealing to our individual and collective values, the efforts of our leaders can be
directed towards fundamentally changing our behaviors that have caused the problem in
the first place. Altering our behavior in this context means reducing the amount of
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions especially carbon dioxide that we are putting into the
atmosphere as consumers, companies and governments. This is the key to stopping
climate change that must be pursued to the fullest extent within the next few years in
order to have any chance of overcoming catastrophic consequences. “According to the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Fourth Assessment Report in
2007, limiting likely average global temperature to 2.0 to 2.4°C – thought to be the
highest “safe” level – means stabilizing CO2 equivalent concentrations at 445 to 490
parts per million, which in turn requires reaching peak CO2 emissions by 2015.”1 The
world has been on the verge of environmental and economic collapse but we can
overcome this by wholeheartedly embracing a collective vision of transforming ourselves
into a low-carbon society.

Climate Leadership

The societal transformation required to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions,

especially carbon dioxide, must be lead by people that have the ability to touch the hearts
and minds of their fellow citizens. Climate leaders must appeal to people’s values and
beliefs so that their actions and behaviors both individually and collectively will be
altered from the inside out. In order for leaders to consciously transform the way we treat
our environment, the way we do business, and the role of our government, they must be
able to see everything in an evolutionary context so as to envision the next logical
progression forward. Even in terms of human values, the more leaders can begin to see
that the issues we are facing are fundamentally about the values that people hold, the
more they will be in a position to affect lasting change. As former Vice-President Al
Gore noted in his speech on TED about the climate crisis, “what’s needed really is a
1
Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment (2009). UN Environment Programme and New Energy Finance.
higher level of consciousness.”2 We need leaders that are able to facilitate the evolution
of individual consciousness and our collective culture so that the problems we are up
against may be solved from a higher level of awareness from which they were created.
As the complexity of our life conditions increase, leaders must recognize the need to
evolve the social systems and structures that are in place at every level of society. We
must look towards facilitating a “gradual evolution in human institutions,”3 as noted by
President Obama in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech citing President Kennedy.
In the context of climate change, this kind of social evolution will create the forms of
governance and establish the economic markets that will be able to mitigate the causes of
catastrophic global warming. The greatest challenge throughout human history is being
presented to us in the form of climate change. We, now more than ever, need the
leadership capable of brining people together in more complex forms of organization to
handle the most pressing issue of our time.

Sustainability

Becoming a sustainable, low carbon society both nationally and globally is going to
take strong political and corporate leaders that are capable of seeing the economic
benefits of solving the climate crisis. As the public and private sectors begin to embrace
sustainability as a core value, the demand for climate leadership from the people with the
power to affect larger portions of the population will only grow. Without these key
decision makers taking action, there is little hope for us making the significant cuts in
greenhouse gas emissions needed to prevent climate disaster. By convincing these leaders
that solving the environmental issues will stimulate the economy and improve their
bottom-line, it will give them the motivation to make the win-win decisions that are the
key to stopping climate change.
For the most part, the solutions to the problems that we face are here. However,
without full government backing and corporate buy-in of these carbon-reducing
solutions, we will make little headway towards reaching our collective vision of
economic and environmental sustainability. With increased education and awareness of
the potentials of living in a low-carbon economy, the sustainable solutions will be
embraced by the masses as a profitable solution to global warming. Prior to this mass
embrace though, the government must enact more stringent climate policy and
corporations must embrace green strategies to show the rest of the population the way
forward.

Climate Policy

The political leadership at every level of society must be aligned in our collective
effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Without a full commitment by global,
national, and state governments to enact ambitious climate policy, we will have little
hope of finding the motivation to alter our individual and collective behavior.
On a global scale, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) has made significant headway over the years in outlining the greenhouse gas
emissions targets and market-based mechanisms needed to solve the climate crisis. This
can be seen with the introduction of emissions trading (known as the ‘carbon market’),
the clean development mechanism (CDM) and joint implementation (JI) by the Kyoto
2
Gore, Al. TED Blog. 08 April 2008, <blog.ted.com/2008/04/new_thinking_on.php>
3
Obama, Barack. Nobel Prize Speech. 10 Dec 2009, <www.cfr.org/publication/20946>
Protocol in 1997.4 However, the limitations of our global governing structures have been
made evident with the difficulties encountered in trying to enforce or finance these
ambitious goals. With the unspectacular results of the recent Conference of Parties
Fifteen (COP15) in Copenhagen, there is still a significant amount of work to do in order
to enact a fair and binding treaty that holds all nations including the United Sates to
greenhouse gas reduction targets. Time is running out for our global climate leaders to
enact an ambitious protocol with the power to regulate global emissions. The climate
leaders of the world must come together to show the world’s community that our
governments are truly committed to solving the climate crisis.
The United States government under the leadership of the Obama Administration has
made significant progress on the climate change issues over the past year. However, there
has yet to be any significant climate policy passed by Congress that would fundamentally
alter the way we run our country or conduct business. The American Reinvestment and
Recovery Act of 2009 has made it clear that President Obama is committed to moving us
towards a low-carbon economy. Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions is widely
recognized as the key to solving the climate crisis but it is being increasingly accepted as
the key driver that will stimulate our economy and create green jobs for thousands of
Americans. These benefits must be made more explicit using measurable evidence so that
the leadership of our country can be persuaded to become climate leaders committed to
reducing emissions not only for our own benefit but also for the world at large.
Two of the largest initiatives that need to be pursued by climate policy makers in the
United States are a federally mandated cap and trade system and a full adoption of green
building standards. By incorporating the financial markets, cap and trade systems provide
an efficient way to encourage businesses to reduce their emissions. These types of,
“programs create a financial incentive for emissions reductions by assigning a cost to
polluting.”5 Placing both a ceiling on the maximum amount of emissions and setting up
the market mechanisms by which corporations can buy and sell their allowances, gives
management a more autonomous way to strategically handle their effects on the
environment. Unlike the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), the United
States has yet to establish a federally mandated cap and trade program for carbon dioxide
emissions. Despite a few regional programs setting standards in different parts of the
country, Congress must establish a nationally recognized cap on carbon emissions that
would allow a market price on this greenhouse gas to be widely accepted. This would be
a key step towards reducing our nation-wide carbon emissions and would induce
businesses to use the carbon market as a way to strategically lower their own carbon
output.
Buildings in the United States both commercial and residential account for about 35%
of our total greenhouse gas emissions.6 This is the single largest area of the economy that
can be targeted as a way to reduce our emissions, stimulate the economy, and create new
green jobs. With organizations such as the U.S. Green Building Council being established
in recent years, there has been a push to have all new construction and building retrofits
be completed using sustainable design and green building principles that reduce the
impact on the environment. The LEED certification program of the USBGC has been at
the forefront of rating and regulating buildings with nationally recognized standards. 7 As
4
Kyoto Protocol: The Kyoto Mechanisms. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
<http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php>
5
Liddell, Alice. Cap and Trade: Background and Basics. ICF International- Green Business.
6
Green Building in North America: Opportunities and Challenges. 2008. Commission of Environmental Cooperation.
7
U.S. Green Building Council. LEED Certification and Rating System. <www.usbgc.org>
these standards and rating systems start to be adopted by the residential sector, there will
be huge opportunities for public policy to use this as a way to capture economic and
environmental benefits. In response to this recognized potential, the Obama
Administration recently put out their ‘Recovery through Retrofit’8 plan that outlines the
need for increased information, financing options, and job opportunities that will promote
the emergence of a new ‘retrofitting’ industry. By having Congress put in place
legislation that establishes subsidy programs, tax incentives, and industry-wide
regulation, the government can spur on greater investment in renewable energies and
energy efficient programs that will be the key drivers in moving us towards a low-carbon
economy and enabling us to meet our greenhouse gas emissions targets.

Carbon Strategy

Public and private corporations have in recent years been awakening to their social
and environmental responsibilities as key stakeholders in our country and planet. The
triple bottom line approach to doing business where the company’s concerns rest not only
with making a profit but also with the well being of their people and the environment in
which they operate is gaining increasing acceptance as the set standard. This shift
towards stakeholder capitalism, as opposed to the shareholder capitalism that has caused
many of the environmental problems that we are currently facing, will lay the foundation
for corporations adopting strategies that are geared towards doing good for the
environment and society while at the same time earning a healthy profit. This is the
essence of any corporate sustainability program but as the opportunities and risks of
managing corporate carbon emissions increases so will the complexity of green strategies
designed to maximize stakeholder value into the future.
Green corporate strategy is fundamentally about managing, reducing, and offsetting
carbon emissions towards becoming a carbon neutral company. “Carbon neutral is a term
used to signify that a set of activities has no net carbon emissions.”9 To achieve this, a
corporation must first complete a complex evaluation of their operation to measure their
carbon footprint or sum total of their emissions. Once these figures have been generated,
senior management will be able to formulate an action plan to undergo preliminary
carbon reducing initiatives. This could take on the form of energy efficiency
improvements to their office space for example or any other effort to reduce emissions
throughout their value chain. The corporate leadership will then strategize about how the
remaining emissions can be counterbalanced so as to achieve the goal of carbon
neutrality. Investing in renewable energies or carbon offsetting projects are the two most
common approaches to balancing a corporations carbon footprint beyond their initial
reductions.
There are numerous opportunities for corporations to reduce their emissions by
investing in “renewable energy sources including solar, wind, biomass, landfill gas, and
geothermal as well as ‘clean’ energy sources including [hydrogen] fuel cells.”10 With the
help of green strategists, these businesses can take advantage of these investments along
with government incentives, tax benefits, and energy grid ties to maximize their return.
As green power technologies continue to evolve, the opportunities for corporations to
create systemic solutions that would offset their carbon emissions will be endless. For
8
Recovery Through Retrofit. 2009. Middle Class Task Force Council on Environmental Quality.
9
Buchwalter, Sarah. Carbon Neutrality: The Journey to Zero Emissions. ICF International- Green Business.
10
Green Technology. 2007. World Resources Institute- Green Power Market Development Group.
<www.thegreenpowergroup.org/>
example, a corporation could invest in a water electrolysis hydrogen fuel cell for their
office building that would use electricity generated by solar panels installed on the roof to
split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. This chemical reaction would generate
an enormous amount of electricity that can be either stored or used to run their facilities
with zero carbon emissions. The by-product of this reaction would be clean water heated
at 158 degrees Fahrenheit that could then be used throughout the building instead of a
water heating system. This company could also offer hydrogen powered company cars
that would be recharged using the main power source of the building. When not in use,
these vehicles would have the added capability of generating their own power that can be
transferred back to the building with the excess being sold to the smart electrical grid for
a new source of company income.11
Carbon offsetting is another area of green strategy that will begin to play more
and more of a crucial role in corporate operations. Companies can invest in projects
found around the world that “lead to the destruction of greenhouse gas emissions, the
prevention of their release into the atmosphere or the sequestration of carbon dioxide.”12
These projects come in various forms and are purchased for either compliance or
voluntary reasons. The most desirable types of carbon offsetting include energy
efficiency, wind power, and methane capturing projects. The management of and
investment in these types of offsetting projects is exactly the type of climate leadership
required by the private sector in order for the world at large to meet its greenhouse gas
emissions reduction targets. As this becomes a standard practice, it will prove to be one
of the largest catalysts in reducing harmful emissions and producing the gases such as
oxygen needed for our global ecosystem to thrive. As can be seen in the growing trend
economic and environmental integration, carbon management strategy will be a
fundamental requirement for the business world as we progress into the twenty first
century.

Green Consultants

In order to meet the challenges posed by climate change, the leadership at every level
of society must work to get public policy passed and corporate strategies in place that
will work in tandem to reverse the causes of global warming. Green consultants to the
climate leaders, corporations, and governments will play a most crucial role in this
endeavor. It will be their work to make sure that both the public and private sector is
steered in the right direction to achieve our collective mission of economic and
environmental sustainability. As facilitators of change, educators of the people, and
advocates to those making the decisions, green consultants will be in a unique position to
develop the climate leaders that are in such high demand.

11
Lovins, Amory. 2009. Fuel Cells for All: How to create a hydrogen economy in four easy steps. Ode Magazine,.
12
Carbon Offsetting Trends Survey. 2008. EcoSecurities and CliamteBiz.