Climate Change: Global Risk Mgt
From a worldwide perspective, the climate ‘debate’ goes on. From a scientific perspective, there is actually very little debate, save from those supported by the industries with the greatest vested interest in the status quo, and opportunists who demur for the sake of controversy which, coincidentally, can lead to notoriety and book deals. The scientific consensus on the seriousness of climate change has been called perhaps the strongest consensus in recent history, clearly attributing unprecedented climate change to human activities, primarily the use of fossil fuels - hundreds of millions of years of sunlight stored by ancient life, sequestered underground as carbon - mined, pumped, vented and burned by humans in about two centuries.
Many communities and nations have moved on from the specious ‘debate’, a vestigial construct of economic forces committed to prolonging the status quo for financial gain, to analysis of impacts and the development of mitigation, adaptation and risk avoidance plans. Internationally, governments are attempting to form a treaty pact, or ‘protocol’, by which the very foundations the world’s economies and business models can be adjusted so as to pull back from our headlong rush towards the planetary limits. If we are to survive, the strategies of negotiating for national advantage must soon yield to the cooperative realisation that humanity is one family, with the same needs and aspirations, living on a shared, limited planet. But that is the subject for another day.
What Does It Mean For Business?
Still, in many business and government circles resistance persists. While the threat is clear, and even acknowledged, the ‘rules of the game’ are quite set. Deviations entail a pioneering courage that few will risk. ’Business as usual’ is the existing paradigm, the systemic inertia we must focus on, clarify and change. Paradigms are by nature nearly invisible to those who participate in them every day. Yet we are presently experiencing in a massive paradigm shift, and our ability to embrace and accelerate that paradigm shift will determine the quality of life, and possibly the very existence of life, in just a few generations.
