Obama ropes in top corporates for climate change push: environmental action isn’t just for “tree-huggers”

19 Oct, 2015 by Helena-Reet Ennet

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OHMYGOSSIP —  President Barack Obama said environmental action isn’t just for “tree-huggers” and can actually help boost companies’ profits, adding that 81 companies, including Intel, Johnson and Johnson, have backed a US-sponsored pledge supporting action to combat climate change.

Obama met with the CEOs of Intel, Johnson and Johnson, The Hershey Company and other top companies at the White House, and each of the firms has agreed to reduce emissions or take other steps to fight climate change.

The recruitment of big business to help battle global warming will become more important over the next few weeks as the president seeks to present a unified American front at a landmark United Nations climate conference in Paris.

“The perception is that this is an environmental issue, it’s for tree-huggers, and that hard-headed business people either don’t care about it or see it as a conflict with their bottom lines,” Obama told reporters after the meeting.

“I just want everybody to understand that American businesses want this to happen as well,” he said. “As we look at this major conference that we’re going to be having in Paris where we’ve already mobilised the international community, including China, to participate, I just want everybody to understand that American businesses want this to happen as well,” Obama told reporters.

“What they do need is certainty. It’s going to be very hard for them to operate if they don’t know what the rules of the road are. And what we’re trying to do is make sure that everybody is on a fair playing field; everybody is doing their part to make sure that we’re saving this planet,” he said.

“If we’re able to establish those kinds of rules and that’s the goal that we’re setting forth in Paris, I have no doubt that these companies are going to excel. And that’s going to mean jobs, businesses, and opportunity alongside cleaner air and a better environment,” Obama said.

During their meetings with Obama, CEOs of US companies announced commitments totalling at least $160 billion.

“It ranges from reducing emissions to reducing water usage, to pursuing zero-net deforestation, to purchasing 100 percent clean energy,” said the US president.

The 81 companies have signed the president’s American Business Act on Climate “pledge,” a non-binding resolution that is effectively a vote of confidence in the executive branch heading into international climate talks in Paris later this year.