US Companies See Climate Risk, But Lack Plan
US: September 23, 2008
NEW YORK - US companies judge climate change a risk to their business, but
lag global companies in setting targets to cut emissions, according to a
global survey.
"We're seeing the US play catch up here, but they've got a way to go," Paul
Dickinson, chief executive of the Carbon Disclosure Project, which
administers the annual survey, said in an interview ahead of the formal
release of the 2008 CDP survey in New York on Monday.
Dickinson said the gap demonstrates the difference between the climate
culture of companies in Europe and the United States.
The European Union has had mandatory greenhouse emissions caps since 2005,
while the United States, historically the world's top greenhouse gas
polluter, has no federal limits on the gases blamed for warming the planet.
About 81 percent of US companies responding to this year's survey, or about
255 companies, perceived climate change as a risk. Yet only 33 percent of US
respondents had greenhouse gas reduction targets in place.
"They are not listening to themselves," Dickinson said.
In contrast, 74 percent of global companies that responded to the survey
have set emissions reduction targets.
Only 14 percent of US oil and gas companies that responded disclosed
greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets.
One US oil company, Occidental Petroleum responded that it "does not have
sufficient information to establish a cost basis for future financial risks
since no regulations requiring greenhouse gas emissions controls have been
implemented by governments in the areas where Occidental operates."
Dickinson said companies should be spurred by the debt-related financial
crisis to determine undiscovered risk and act on it.
"If everybody is reporting a risk, but not everybody is starting to act on
it, that would seem to imply things are going to change," he said.
US presidential candidates Senators John McCain and Barack Obama have both
said they favor regulating greenhouse gases.
Some 81 percent of European companies answered the survey's questions, while
64 percent of US companies responded. (Editing by David Gregorio)
Story by Timothy Gardner
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
|