However, we try to stick to things that are close to our own business operations,” says Alan Jope, chief executive of the $135 billion consumer goods giant Unilever (ULVR.L), which is aiming for net-zero nirvana by 2039. And as a business leader, you need to take a position on those things. The world’s biggest banks and corporations are baking net-zero ambitions into their strategies, incentive structures and the composition of their balance sheets and investment portfolios largely because customers, investors and employees are insisting they do so rather than politicians. That should lend greater urgency, as if the end of the human species were insufficient motivation, to the negotiations in the second and final week of COP26.įor the private sector, there’s little chance of an easy backslide were Trump to become the first commander in chief since Grover Cleveland to hold two non-consecutive terms in office. The hope among business leaders and policymakers in Glasgow is that things will be too far along to unwind should Republican Trump win the American election in three years and renege on commitments made by President Joe Biden, who would be both his Democratic successor and predecessor. On the sidelines of the 2018 climate shindig in Poland, he even tried to stage a glitzy pro-coal event. He then set about unwinding numerous environmental rules and regulations at home and shilled loudly for hydrocarbons. There, signatories agreed to keep the earth from warming by no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. For starters, soon after occupying the Oval Office, Trump pulled the United States from the Paris Agreement, reached at a previous COP in 2015. Their worry is that he will try to undo many of the things that have been agreed to try to keep the planet from warming up more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels. A potential return to the White House hovers over the deliberations.Īs nations sign up to long-term commitments to reduce their carbon emissions, banks pledge their balance sheets to assist and multinationals outdo each other with glossy promises to make their businesses cleaner and greener, many COP26 attendees wonder if Trump will return to the presidency in 2024. And not just because he owns a Scottish golf club not so far away which played host to Indonesia’s delegation. The former president is not actually at COP26, the big UN climate conference in Glasgow, but his presence is palpable. GLASGOW, Nov 9 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Donald Trump did his damnedest to yank America from global efforts to combat climate change.