Businesses which ignore climate science risk trashing shareholder value
“It was 1989. Margaret Thatcher, poster girl for conservative pro-business policy, urged the United Nations General Assembly to take remedial action on global warming. From that date at least, governments around the world should have been aware that here was an issue deserving policy attention. Margaret Thatcher was a scientist.”
Thirty-five years on, governments and business have not heeded her plea. On 18 Dec. 2014, the online newsletter Crikey published an opinion piece (paywalled) from the President arguing that carbon-intensive businesses that have failed to take precautionary action against climate change or carbon pricing are vulnerable to litigation from shareholders for trashing shareholder value. Business should have known from the date of the report No. 2 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (1995) if not earlier that a carbon price was on its way.