Good COP/Bad COP? How business fared in the Paris Agreement
它是用哪种标准衡量，历史：195个国家同意，在第一时间，一个计划，以应对气候变化。而且，尽管Paris Agreement, as it’s come to be called, will be dissected and discussed every way imaginable over the coming days, weeks and months, it represents a key shift in the climate movement: a global consensus that something significant needs to be done, and a pathway to do it.
Most analyses undoubtedly will fall into three buckets, a classic bell curve of assessment: a relatively small percentage at either end will advocate that the accord is, variously, an overwhelming success or a dismal failure. Each side will come armed with forceful opinions and compelling statistics — that what was created in Paris puts the world on a solid trajectory toward addressing climate change, or that the substance of the agreement is too little, too late.
Some climate activists and scientists have decried the agreement as everything from a fraud to somewhere between 'dangerous and deadly.'
In the first 24 hours since France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius made the agreement official, there was plenty of both. Leading organizations —Sierra Club,World Resources Institute,Environmental Defense Fund,刻瑞斯,We Mean Business,WWF,气候组织和countless others — issued statements declaring some version of victory. So did scores of heads of state.
At the same time, some climate activists and scientists have decried the agreement as everything from a fraud to somewhere between “dangerous and deadly,” in the words of one NGO critic. As noted climate scientist James Hansen described the Paris Agreement: “There is no action, just promises.”
急需的路标
In the big, fat middle of the bell curve are the rest of us — including nearly every company that has been paying attention — who long had anticipated that whatever came out of Paris would be necessary but insufficient, an exercise that would set some much-needed guideposts for action but likely would be inadequate to address the problem at the scale, speed and scope demanded to fend off severe climate-related impacts. These are the companies that, by and large, are looking to get by, reducing their climate impacts without breaking the bank.
It’s too late for some of that: Some of those severe impacts are upon us and will worsen, even if the Paris Agreement is ultimately fulfilled in both letter and spirit.
So, how did business fare in all this? Not bad, considering.
一些私营部门或者其机构代理申报的胜利甚至在我们任何人抵达法国首都巴黎，理由是稳健的数量由坡道可再生能源利用和减少温室气体排放的公司和行业的承诺。
For the first time in climate-negotiation history, the largest organizations representing big business were aligned, collaborating and focused on meaningful change. Many of the world’s largest financial institutions had committed to ambitious investment and lending targets, as we’ve reported这里,这里和这里， 例如。超过万亿$ 3基金were on their way to being divested来自化石燃料。可再生能源技术也逐渐成熟，并成为具有全球竞争力。公司被梳理自己的供应链机会挤掉温室气体排放的一切，从农业到服装到汽车。，从企业家到政府民间组织，每个人都被碎裂。如果没有合作。
(GreenBiz managing editor Elsa Wenzel put together aterrific summaryof many corporate and institutional commitments.)
一些私营部门或者其机构代理申报的胜利在法国首都甚至在我们任何人的到来。
所以,argument went, whatever happened in Paris wouldn’t change that much. The business world was already on a glide path to a low-carbon economy.
It was a nice sound bite — especially in the event that no multilateral agreement emerged from COP21 — and it is substantively true. But it lacked the authority of a global consensus, even one that, like the Paris Agreement, isn’t legally binding.
做好准备，愿意并且能够
All of those ingredients were indisputable keys to the ulitmate success in Paris. You could see it coming in the days leading up to Saturday’s grand finale. The conversation at more than a dozen conferences, receptions, dinners and small-group events I attended last week were rife with references to "market signals," "stranded assets," "low-carbon technologies," "decarbonization," "reforestation" and other words and terms that represent, directly or indirectly, unprecedented business engagement and the recognition of the hard work — and the opportunities — ahead.
该re was little doubt that the global business community was ready, willing and able to move forward with an ambitious agenda. I heard practically no references to "job-killing regulations," "extreme leftists wealth transfers" or "climate alarmists," the currency of a small handful of practiced communicators seeking to sow confusion and undermine the need to take action. From what I could tell, if they were in Paris (和they were），它们在很大程度上自言自语。他们完全没有做任何破坏。
听说几乎没有提及“就业杀条例”，“财富转移”或“气候危言耸听，”求母猪大约需要采取气候行动的困惑和疑问，实行传播者一小撮的货币。
该corporate leadership crowd was well represented. There were the usual visionary business voices — Paul Polman, Richard Branson, Elon Musk and Ted Turner were ubiquitous, as they always are at these events — but also some newbies.
For example, at the World Business Council on Sustainable Development Member Council, where I moderated several mainstage panels, I had the opportunity to interview John A. Bryant, chairman and CEO of Kellogg Company, a global food giant that hadn’t been heard from much on climate change until recently. So, too, Eric Olsen, CEO of LafargeHolcim, the global cement giant. They were among the hundreds of corporate chieftains who descended on Paris to make their voices heard.
主流媒体似乎令人震惊的盲目关于这一切。在这里，全部是how the New York Timessummarized over the weekend what the climate deal means for business:
包括在周六的交易限制全球气温上升可能帮助公司的远大目标参与可再生能源和能源效率，扩大他们的市场。设置一个很高的门槛也可能使为创新者和风险投资能源行业的吸引力，增加在什么一直是保守的经营席卷转变的机会。该协议可能过不去一些像电力企业和煤炭生产企业，其产品会产生高浓度的二氧化碳现任公司。
所有这一切无疑是真实的，但它是天真的，至少可以这样说。这不只是能源，愚蠢的。该Times'summary omits many of the biggest transformational business opportunities already in progress: the move to vehicle electrification, car sharing and autonomous transportation; the ability of the Internet of Things to engender radical efficiencies in the use of energy, water and other resources in buildings, transportation systems, logistics, cities and more; advanced agricultural techniques that minimize inputs and sequester carbon, now being implemented by some of the world’s biggest food and ag companies; the emerging circular economy, with its capability to dramatically reduce material throughput while re-localizing commerce; the advanced materials revolution, and much more.
All of these technologies and trends are destined to accelerate post-Paris.
This is the promise of COP21. And it was part of hundreds of conversations, involving the world’s biggest companies as well as many of the most promising startups and disruptive technology companies.
A giant, global bubble?
To be sure, there was a nagging feeling that all of this positive and promising talk represented a giant, global bubble — albeit a 40,000-person bubble — an echo chamber of the good guys preening their sustainability cred, and maybe a few others coming along for the ride. One could easily have left Paris with a sense that the private sector is all in. Clearly that’s not the case.
And there were glacier-sized holes in the final agreement. The impacts of shipping and aviation, for example, were omitted. Shipping alone represents roughly the carbon emissions of Germany, according to the Carbon War Room, and are on a course to increase by as much as 250 percent by mid-century.
有严重的排斥的担忧the rights of indigenous peoples, the lack of finance for loss and damage caused by climate-related calamities, and the fact that the emissions-reduction commitments made by countries still add up to well over 3 degrees of planetary warming, more than twice the 1.5 degree aspiration stated in the final agreement.
该re were glacier-sized holes in the final agreement. The impacts of shipping and aviation, for example, were omitted.
Clearly, there’s much more work to be done.
For the private sector, there’s a need to look beyond their value chains to the larger systems in which they’re operating. To achieve the ambitious goals companies and countries have set for themselves — to live up to the promise of warding off climate change’s worst impacts — will require rethinking systems. That includes the consumption model that has become the expectation of any self-respecting developing economy.
这也意味着重新思考企业的宗旨：以赚钱或为社会服务？
Many companies present in Paris would no doubt rush to say that both are possible. But there’s a lot of change yet to happen, and little time to do it, to prove that all these business leaders truly intend to be the change they wish to see in the world.
