Directors and Climate Change – Time for Leadership

‘Without rapid carbon emission reductions far greater than Paris commitments, the planet will become ungovernable’

Company boards need to seriously consider the
impact and complications of climate change. 

Any balanced assessment of the climate science and evidence accepts that climate change is driven primarily by human carbon emissions from fossil fuel combustion, agriculture and land clearing, superimposed on natural climate variability, and that it is happening faster and more extensively than previously anticipated.

In this context, scientists have long been concerned about the extreme "tipping point" risks of the climate system; non-linear positive feedbacks which trigger rapid, irreversible and catastrophic change.

These feedbacks are now kicking in. For example, Arctic weather conditions are becoming increasingly unstable as jetstream fluctuations warm the region 20°C or more above normal levels; sea ice is at an all-time low with increasing evidence of methane emissions from melting permafrost. Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are melting at worst-case rates, with the potential for several metre sea level rise this century. The Antarctic Larsen ice sheet and Pine Island glacier are showing signs of major breakup as a result of warming Southern Ocean waters, a process which is probably now irreversible. Coral reefs around the world, not least the Great Barrier Reef, are dying off as a result of record high sea temperatures. Major terrestrial carbon sinks are showing signs of becoming carbon emitters. And much more.

Read the Australian Institute of Company Directors story - “Directors and Climate Change – Time for Leadership.”