Sheldon Whitehouse Nails It On Exactly How Much Hasn't Changed On Climate

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Drollette: I see where a lot of progressively minded big pension funds and shareholder activists are saying that they can use their influence to get the boards of say, Exxon or Shell, to listen when it comes to long-term threats. Do you think that really has possibilities? Or is that being oversold by the people who run pension funds to make themselves look good?

Whitehouse: I think both. I think it has a lot of potential, and I think it’s being oversold. Let me preface my point by saying that I don’t think that there’s a way to carbon safety and 1.5 degrees [Celsius of average worldwide global warming] without political action, particularly action in Congress. And I am not the only person saying that; I don’t know of any person who can demonstrate a path to 1.5 degrees that doesn’t require political action—particularly action in Congress. So against that backdrop, the efforts of investors to try to make adjustments in corporate behavior is helpful, but a long way from making the difference.

And a key part of the problem here has been that for a very long time, the political stance of America’s corporate elite regarding climate has not been measured, and they have not been held accountable. It’s only because people have started to score political activity and influence, beginning to map political activity, that this has been on the radar at all.

And to top it off, I think if most CEOs were to commission a political audit of their influence operation, they would find that their own influence operation was hostile to significant climate legislation, even if their company’s official policy was to be sustainable and to be acknowledging of the climate crisis.

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https://thebulletin.org/2021/03/senator-its-time-to-wake-up-whitehouse-drops-his-climate-change-mic/

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1. yep.