Daily Management Review

The Business Roundtable of U.S. Supports Carbon Pricing


09/19/2020


The group has shown its support towards reducing “U.S. greenhouse gas emissions” by eighty percent in comparison to 2005 figures by 2050.



The consortium of CEO in the U.S., the Business Roundtable, made up of the biggest companies in the country, revealed that it is in favour of “market-based carbon pricing” as a measure to battle climate change. This marks a major shift in the group’s erstwhile divided stance on the matter.
 
The lobby has representative from more than two hundred major U.S. companies including Amazon.com as well as Chevron. The group has shown its support towards reducing “U.S. greenhouse gas emissions” by eighty percent in comparison to 2005 figures by 2050. This attempt is being made to curb the rise of global temperature below “to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels”. In the words of the Walmart’s C.E.O as well as the Chairman of the Business Roundtable, Doug McMillon:
“The new Business Roundtable position on climate change reflects our belief that a national market-based emissions reduction policy is critical to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to levels designed to avoid the worst effects and mitigate the impacts of climate change”.
 
Earlier, it had refused to back legislations imposing “an economy-wide cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions”. Moreover, the present stance of the consortium puts it in contradiction to the President Trump’s repeated downplay of climate related risks as the country began to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
 
According to Reuters:
“In its recommendations, the Business Roundtable said it did not endorse any specific kinds of carbon pricing mechanism but said the United States should avoid overlapping or duplicative federal and state regulations”.
 
Among other oil firms or utilities company showing support towards the “recommendations as part of the Business Roundtable” include Vistra, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66 and APE.
 
 
References:
reuters.com